CRAY RESEARCH-LIVERMORE SOFTWARE EVENT
SHOWCASES ENGINEERING APPLICATIONS ON MPP
SYSTEM

Firms Say Running Structural Problems This Complex On An
MPP Machine Is A First

EAGAN, Minn., June 27, 1994 -- At a workshop held here earlier
this month, researchers from Alcoa, Alcan International, USX
Corporation's U.S. Steel Group, Samsung Group, the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory and other organizations successfully ran a
range of complex engineering problems using the CRAY T3D
massively parallel processing (MPP) system from Cray
Research (NYSE:CYR) and the popular LS-DYNA3D structural
analysis software from Livermore Software Technology Corp.
(LSTC), Livermore, Calif.

Representatives from more than a dozen organizations were
invited to bring at least one "real-world" engineering problem
each to the five-day event hosted by Cray Research and LSTC. 
The event was significant, Cray Research and LSTC officials
said,  as it was the first-ever workshop dedicated to
commercially available structural engineering software for
MPP systems, which combine hundreds or thousands of
microprocessors to solve problems.  To date few commercially
available software packages are offered on MPP systems in the
marketplace and a limited number of industrial problems have
been run on the systems. 

At the symposium, industry representatives collaborated with
software and hardware experts to run problems on the CRAY
C90 parallel vector supercomputer system and the new CRAY
T3D MPP system, including the crash analysis of two cars in a
head-on collision; the metal stamping simulation of a car
fender made of aluminum; and the metal forming analysis of a
Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) housing unit.  Nearly half of the
problems were metal forming applications, a relatively new
industrial application for computers; six problems were
earmarked for the CRAY T3D system.

According to Sara Graffunder, director of applications for Cray
research, this is the second Cray-sponsored event devoted to
the LS-DYNA3D software package on high-performance
computers.  "In dedicating CRAY T3D computer time for this
year's event, we expanded the workshop to focus on the MPP
version of LS-DYNA3D and our MPP hardware, Cray's latest
high-end technology," said Graffunder.  "We are extremely
pleased with the results the participants saw and are excited
to be able bring the group's accomplishments to our customers
and industry."

It can take years to rewrite programs originally developed for
traditional vector supercomputers for the MPP system
architecture, said John Hallquist, president of LSTC.  For the
more than two years LSTC has been working with others in the
industry -- including Cray Research -- on the LS-DYNA3D
conversion for MPP. 

"In just a five-day workshop, we saw several problems run to
completion on the CRAY T3D," he said.  "The combination of
expertise of all the participants is what made the symposium a
true success.  No one group -- Cray, LSTC, or the industrial
customers and prospects -- could have achieved on its own
what the group did in five days."

Thomas Zacharia, acting head of the Computational Center for
Industrial Innovation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has
considerable MPP experience, having worked on the lab's four
MPP systems.  This was the first time he had used the CRAY
T3D system and he successfully ran his crash analysis problem
to completion on this system.

"That's where the news is," Zacharia said.  "At this point in the
MPP revolution we are not so much concerned about the
performance of MPP systems over the other kinds of
architectures.  The fact that real-world industrial problems
were run to completion and gave accurate results on the MPP
system is a real step forward with this technology.

"Clearly MPP hardware is evolving daily at a very fast pace and
the software hasn't kept up," he said.  "There are only a few
commercial programs available on MPP today, and I am pleased
to be a part of this workshop and the efforts to advance MPP
applications."

Zacharia also noted that crash analysis problems are more
complex to map onto the MPP systems; metal forming problems
are considerably more parallel and substantially easier to run
on MPP systems.

Mark Finn, research scientist at Alcan, came to the five-day
symposium with only one, but a very large and complex problem
-- the sheet metal forming of an automotive front fender made
of aluminum.   His goal was to run the job to completion on the
CRAY T3D with accurate results.

Finn says that as one of the world's largest manufacturers of
aluminum, Alcan has a vested interest in aiding automotive
companies in introducing aluminum stamped components into
their products.  Automotive die designers and stamping plants
are relatively unfamiliar with the behavior of aluminum, which
behaves differently from steel in terms of stamping and
springback.  Through the application of metal forming
simulations and Alcan's knowledge of its aluminum material,
Alcan is working with the automotive industry to overcome the
initial perceived difficulties in introducing a new material to
a mature, experience-based industry, Finn said. 

"To my knowledge this forming problem (which was comprised
of 130,00 elements) is the largest and most complex metal
forming analysis ever run on an MPP system," said Finn. 

"Both the operating system for the T3D and LS-DYNA3D are in
early developmental stages and I was amazed at the robust
environment of the CRAY T3D and LS-DYNA3D," he said.  Finn
said that he saw a great deal of promise in metal forming
applications for high-end MPP systems (256 processors or
above).

Without a doubt, metal forming problems should prove to be
one of the most scalable industrial applications for MPP
hardware," he said.  "In the real physical world, as the tooling
or stamping equipment moves it contacts the aluminum sheet
at a multitude of points and therefore is in essence a parallel
operation.  By dividing up this problem on a large number of
processors, we can give each processor a stream of discrete
elements to work on, resulting in fast, efficient problem-
solving.  Depending upon the number of processors allocated, a
large number of designs could be evaluated in a single working
day."

Cray Research provides the leading supercomputing tools and
services to help solve customers' most challenging problems.

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