Cray/Media:      Mardi Larson, 612/683-3538
Cray/Financial:  Brad Allen, 612/683-7395

CRAY T3D SYSTEM ORDERED FOR INSTALLATION AT
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE

EAGAN, Minn., Nov. 8, 1994 -- The Department of Defense High
Performance Computing Distributed Center at Eglin Air Force
Base, Fla., has ordered a 128-processor CRAY T3D massively
parallel processing (MPP) supercomputer, Cray Research
announced today.  Installation is under way.

Coupled with the center's existing CRAY Y-MP and CRAY Y-MP
EL supercomputers, the CRAY T3D system will support the
research, development, test and evaluation mission carried out
by the center on behalf of the U.S. Air Force and other
Department of Defense agencies.  The new supercomputer will
have 1,024 million words of central memory and will be
networked to a 1.2 trillion byte StorageTek storage silo as
well as to a Visualization Laboratory with high-performance
engineering and graphics/visualization workstations.

"Scientists and engineers will use the high performance
computer to simulate the effect of aerodynamic forces on new
advanced weapon systems," said Herbert Spies, director of
systems technology for the 96 Communications-Computer
Systems Group at Eglin.  "The increased computational power
made possible by the CRAY T3D will allow larger, more
detailed simulations of more complex problems."

The simulations serve the broad goal of delivering weapons in
the safest, most effective way possible.

"Using the power and very large memory of the CRAY T3D
supercomputer, Eglin's scientists can predict the aerodynamic
forces acting on aircraft, fuel tanks, bombs and carriage
hardware," Spies said.  "Normally, a wind tunnel test would be
required.  Wind tunnel tests can cost hundreds of thousands of
dollars and take up to a year to complete.  Computer simulation
will save both money and time, with completion in only a
matter of days."

The CRAY T3D system will allow Eglin's researchers to
distribute applications among multiple processors to achieve
very fast simulations of highly complex situations.  They will
use Computational Fluid Dynamics and Computational
Mechanics applications that have been re-programmed to take
advantage of the massively parallel processing environment of
the CRAY T3D system.  In the simulations, aircraft and weapon
surfaces are divided into small three-dimensional grids.  Air
density, velocity, energy and pressure are calculated on each of
the three-dimensional grids.  This process is repeated at each
instant of time along the flight path of the weapon for each
grid cell.  The highly accurate picture of the effect of
aerodynamics on munitions and aircraft made possible with the
simulation are vital to effective design.

The Eglin Center is a Department of Defense-designated High
Performance Computing Distributed Center.  Funding for the
CRAY T3D supercomputer was provided under the Department's
High Performance Computing Modernization Plan.

"Cray Research is pleased to provide computational tools
required by the Department of Defense in its national defense
mission," said John F. Carlson, Cray Research chairman and
CEO.

Introduced just a year ago, the CRAY T3D supercomputer is the
leading MPP system today.  

Cray Research creates the most powerful, highest-quality
computational tools for solving the world's most challenging
scientific and industrial problems.

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