Mardi Larson, 612/683-3538 CRAY RESEARCH INTRODUCES NEW VERSION OF SOFTWARE PROGRAM TO HELP AUTO, ENGINE INDUSTRIES New Engine Combustion Product Is Industry's First To Simulate Two-Stroke Engines, Support 30 Fuels EAGAN, Minn., Dec. 20, 1993 -- Cray Research, Inc. today introduced its newest version of CRI/TurboKiva, a powerful software environment expected to significantly reduce the average two-year period needed to test efficiency and emissions of new engines, the company said. This revolutionary software has been developed in cooperation with the Group T-3 at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, N.M., and is based on the KIVA family of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes from LANL. CRI/TurboKiva 2.0, the new version of the product initially announced in Jan. of last year, is the first engine combustion software to support the simulation of two-stroke engines. This is an important software feature as the automotive and engine industries look to two-stroke engine technology to design low-vibration, compact engines that are less expensive to manufacture and less polluting than today's engines, said Reza Taghavi, head of Cray Research's engine combustion group in the company's applications department. "Nearly every automotive company in the world has begun initiatives to design efficient two-stroke engines for automotive application and CRI/TurboKiva can now assist them in their efforts," said Taghavi. "The obvious advantages of the two-stroke engine are ease and reduced cost of manufacturing and high specific power (power generated in relation to engine weight). Based on patent information, the auto industry is working to move toward this engine design and there has been significant evolution of the technology to make it suitable for automotive applications." "Two stroke engines have very unique flow characteristics that make it challenging to predict emissions," Taghavi said. "An analysis tool like CRI/TurboKiva is very valuable at this time." CRI/TurboKiva software models fluid flows -- air intake, fuel injection, combustion, and exhaust characteristics -- of reciprocating internal combustion engines. "CRI/TurboKiva actually helps engineers see' the combustion process in more detail. It's almost like watching the engine breath on the computer workstation screen," he said. "In order to design the best engine, good analysis is required of the flow and combustion -- particularly in two-stroke engines, where efficient scavaging and pumping processes are key in designing the most efficient, least polluting engine possible." Taghavi said that two-stroke engines are widely used for motorcycles, lawn mowers and snow blowers, for example; four-stroke and diesel engines are most commonly used in passenger cars. The new version of CRI/TurboKiva can be used to simulate all these engine types and will be an attractive computational tool for the wider engine market with this new capability, he said. An additionally important new feature of CRI/TurboKiva 2.0 is the support of 30 fuels ranging from methane to jet-a fuel, Taghavi said. "When we initially announced CRI/TurboKiva last year the software supported only about 10 fuels," he said. "We've tripled the number of fuels engine designers can experiment with as they use the tool to design new engines and simulate the combustion, flow and emission process. CRI/TurboKiva offers the most fuel options of any engine combustion simulation program available today." CRI/TurboKiva is designed for use on all Cray Research supercomputing systems. Priced according to platform, the product begins at $54,000 (U.S.), Taghavi said, and is currently being used by 13 automotive, bus, truck and engine manufacturers and universities throughout the world including Nissan Motors, Hyundai, and the Korean Institute of Science and Technology. The new version of the software will begin shipping in early first quarter 1994, Taghavi said. Nearly every major automotive company in the world uses Cray Research supercomputer simulation to reduce the number of expensive prototypes of cars and vehicle components such as engines, in order to reduce design cycles. The automotive industry has an aggressive goal to reduce the design cycle from more than five years to less than three years. According to HPCC Week, (Sept. 9, 1993), with Cray Research supercomputing technology Ford Motor Company, which has two of Cray Research's most powerful supercomputers and has been a long-time Cray Research customer, has reduced new vehicle production cycles from 49 months two years ago to 37 months today. HPCC Week notes that Ford's new Mustang line took 35 months from start to finish. Twenty-four months is the corporate goal. Ford's use of crash simulation has resulted in a direct savings of $23 million that otherwise would have been spent on prototype vehicles to be used in physical tests, according to the publication. "The use of Cray Research systems for engine simulation could soon equal the use for crash simulation, which was Cray Research's entry into the automotive industry in the mid '80s," said John Carlson, Cray Research chairman and chief executive officer. "As competition and environmental concerns heighten, engine designers are continually challenged to design superior engines with reduced emissions and increased fuel efficiency," he said. "CRI/TurboKiva, combined with the power of our supercomputers, can help design engineers to solve problems and achieve results with unprecedented speed and accuracy. It is another example of our commitment to deliver complete solutions to our customers." Under Cray Research's agreement with LANL, updates to the KIVA family of codes will be available and incorporated in CRI/TurboKiva. Cray Research creates the most powerful, highest quality computational tools for solving the world's most challenging scientific and industrial problems. ###