Ultimate F1

HP Super Computes Car Design for the BMW WilliamsF1 Team

HP is the leading technology provider to one of the world's fastest-moving enterprises — the BMW WilliamsF1 Team.

The 2005 BMW WilliamsF1 Team car, the FW27, has been designed, and thousands of race simulations conducted, by an HP supercomputer. The car is competing in 2005 armed with a new chassis and a new engine. “We want to move back into the winning lane,” says Team Principal, Frank Williams. “Every single person in the team is brimming with ambition and motivation."

BMW Motorsport Director, Mario Theissen also feels confident about the forthcoming season, its 19 races making it the longest there has ever been in motor racing’s top echelon. "It’s going to be a real show of strength for everyone involved," says Theissen.

Speed of design

New FIA regulations for 2005 required BMW WilliamsF1 Team to raise the front wing by 50 mm, to move the rear wing forward 150 mm, and to reduce the diffuser height significantly; and the floor in front of the rear tire must be cut away.

These changes could have resulted in a loss of nearly 30% of the car's total down force but the BMW WilliamsF1 Team and HP Bristol Labs rose to the challenge. The WilliamsF1 design team was able to assess twice as many aerodynamic models in computational fluid dynamics this year than ever before.

Sam Michael, technical director at WilliamsF1, explained some of the technological input made by HP: "Prediction, using computational fluid dynamics, was our main tool to assess the implications of the new FIA rules for the 2005 season, and to consider a wide range of potential solutions. Together with our partner, HP, we have scaled up our computational resource by a factor of three."

The aerodynamic and structural characteristics of the FW27 were modeled on a powerful HP Linux cluster at WilliamsF1 UK headquarters in Grove. The HP Bristol Labs facility, which provides enterprise customers with a 'pay-as-you-go' resource, acted as 'surge capacity' for WilliamsF1, managing peaks in workload, allowing the team to perform numerous additional simulations of the FW27 car.

The results of the simulations have allowed the team to optimize solutions for front and rear wings, brake ducts and radiator ducts, without the expense and time of fabrication or wind tunnel testing.

Crash testing

WilliamsF1 engineers are also using the HP Labs utility computing facility to take structural and crash analysis to a new level of fidelity by creating sophisticated models of carbon fiber, which demands a tenfold increase in computer power.

Structural integrity of all Formula One cars is a specific requirement under the FIA regulations, and therefore plays a key part in the design of the FW27. Structural integrity and crash test simulations were carried out in-house at WilliamsF1 UK headquarters in Grove.

Gavin Fisher, chief designer, WilliamsF1 said that "HP's technology has brought the design team major improvements year on year and 2005 marks a significant escalation in this relationship. Access to HP Labs has played a considerable role in the design and crash testing possibilities for the new FW27 car."

Racing technology support

HP is entering its sixth year as principal sponsor of the BMW WilliamsF1 Team.

Since 2000, HP has been the technology behind the BMW WilliamsF1 Team, providing a comprehensive range of products, technologies, solutions and services. These include: Linux-based supercomputing solutions, wireless local area network (wLAN), mobility computing, as well as printing and imaging technologies, which support the team across car design, performance management, manufacturing and telemetry.

Not only does HP technology help build the car, it also helps the BMW WilliamsF1 Team control it during a race. Advanced HP service solutions will provide the BMW WilliamsF1 Team with 24-hour trackside support at all 19 Grand Prix races around the globe.

An OpenView Storage mirroring system has now replaced the team's Storage Area Network, allowing for the transfer of updated information rather than entire files. As a result, live information is zapped more rapidly and more reliably to the BMW WilliamsF1 Team from the Grand Prix track, enabling race changes to be made more quickly.

"HP is committed to further developing the partnership that started in 2000 with the BMW WilliamsF1 Team," said Andrew Collis, director, Global Sports Sponsorship, HP. "It is our aim to provide the team with the breadth and depth of technical expertise that HP has, making an invaluable contribution to their performance.”

Design images

HP enables WilliamsF1 designers to be more productive through the use of the HP Designjet 4000, which prints twice as fast as conventional printers. The print solution clearly defines the design intent with outstanding line drawings while providing better communication by using large format color prints. "The HP Designjet 4000 Printer enables our designers to be more productive, while providing outstanding print speed. This will ultimately help the team in its quest for success" said Chris Taylor, IT manager, WilliamsF1.

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Related links

HP Bristol Labs http://www.hpl.hp.com/

BMW Williams F1 www.bmw.williamsf1.com/