This weblog was written in collaboration with the Microsoft Floor and Azure staff. It describes how we used Azure high-performance computing (HPC) to save lots of time, prices, and revolutionized our product design piece of producing our Microsoft Floor merchandise.
The Microsoft Floor group exists to create iconic end-to-end experiences throughout {hardware}, software program, and companies that individuals love to make use of day-after-day. We consider that merchandise are a mirrored image of the individuals who construct them, and that the correct instruments and infrastructure can complement the expertise and keenness of designers and engineers to ship revolutionary merchandise. Product stage simulation fashions are routinely utilized in day-to-day resolution making on design, reliability, and product options. The group can be on a multi-year journey to ship differentiated merchandise in a extremely environment friendly method. Microsoft Azure HPC performs an important function in enabling this imaginative and prescient. Beneath is an account of how we have been in a position to do extra with much less by leveraging the ability of simulation and Azure HPC.
Floor units growth on Microsoft Azure
I’m a Principal Engineer at Microsoft and a structural analyst. I’ve been a heavy person of Azure HPC and an early adopter of Azure A8 and A9 digital machines. In 2015, with the assistance of our Floor IT staff, we deployed and solved many points with Abaqus (a Finite Aspect Evaluation (FEA) software program) implementation in Azure HPC. By 2016, product stage structural simulations for Floor Professional 4 and the unique Floor laptop computer had absolutely migrated to Azure HPC from on-premises servers. Giant fashions with tens of millions of levels of freedom grew to become routine and simply solved on Azure HPC. This early use of simulations enabled downside fixing for design engineers tasked with robustness and reliability metrics. Utilization grew together with product line development. Together with my colleagues Pritul Shah, Senior Director of a cross product engineering staff, and Jarkko Sihvonen, Senior Engineer of the IT Infrastructure and Providers staff, we collaborated to scale up structural simulation footprint in our group. The imaginative and prescient to construct a world simulation staff meant entry to computing servers in Western North America and Southeast Asia which was simply deployed by the Floor IT and Azure HPC groups.
Product growth: Floor laptop computer
The provision of Azure HPC for structural simulations utilizing Abaqus helped make this a main growth device for product design. Design ideas created in digital computer-aided design (CAD) methods are translated into FEA mannequin intimately. These are true digital prototypes and represent all main subsystems within the machine. The analyst can use FEA fashions to impose completely different take a look at and reliability circumstances in a digital setting and decide feasibility. In a number of days, a whole lot of simulations are executed to judge numerous design concepts and options to make the machine sturdy. Subsequently, the chosen design turns into a protype after which topic to rigorous testing for real-world use circumstances. There are a number of suggestions loops constructed into our engineering course of to match precise assessments and FEA outcomes for mannequin validation.
Within the first graphics depicted above, a digital prototype (FEA mannequin) laptop computer machine is set-up to drop on its nook to the ground. This fashions the real-world bodily testing that’s carried out in our Reliability Engineering labs. The impression velocity for a given top is the preliminary situation for the dynamic simulation. The dynamic drop simulation is executed on a whole lot of cores of an Azure HPC cluster utilizing Abaqus solver. We used the Abaqus and Specific solver which is understood for its sturdy and correct answer for high-speed, nonlinear, dynamic occasions similar to client electronics drop testing and automotive crashworthiness. These solvers are optimized particularly for Azure HPC clusters and allow scaling to hundreds of cores for quick throughputs. The simulation jobs full in a matter of some hours on these optimized Azure HPC servers as an alternative of the times it used to take beforehand. The outcomes are reviewed by the analysts and stress ranges are checked in opposition to materials limits. Design groups and analysts then assessment the studies and make design updates. This cycle continues in very fast loops because the Azure HPC servers allow quick turnaround for evaluations.
The second graphic depicts an instance of the hinge within the machine that was optimized for energy. The staff was in a position to visualize the impression induced movement and stress ranges of the hinge inner elements from the simulation. This enabled us to isolate the primary situation and make the correct design enhancements. This perception helped redesign the hinge meeting to trigger decrease stress ranges. Important time was saved within the design course of as just one iteration was wanted for fulfillment. Tooling, bodily prototyping, and testing prices have been additionally saved.
Presently, your entire Microsoft Floor product line makes use of this method of validating design with digital prototypes (FEA fashions) run on Azure HPC clusters. Hundreds of simulation jobs are executed routinely in a matter of weeks to allow cutting-edge designs which have very excessive reliability and buyer satisfaction.
What’s subsequent
The staff is now targeted on deploying extra scalable simulation and Azure HPC useful resource for multi-disciplinary groups and for multi-physics modeling. There’s a enormous alternative to allow machine studying and AI in product creation. Azure HPC and the partnerships inside Microsoft organizations shall be leveraged to drive massive scale improvements at a speedy velocity. We’re additionally persevering with this digital transformation journey with mannequin primarily based methods engineering (MBSE) with the V4 Institute. World-class organizations seeking to do extra with much less and on a quest for scaling digital simulations will enormously profit from collaborating with Azure.
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