Koric achieves new world record in parallel scaling of commerical engineering code

LS-DYNA, an explicit finite element code used for simulations in the auto, aerospace, manufacturing, and bioengineering industries, was recently scaled to 15,000 cores on NCSA’s Blue Waters supercomputer—a world record for scaling of any commercial engineering code.

Both software developers and end-users face constraints when it comes to testing the limits of commercial codes. They often don’t have access to truly massive supercomputers, and their resources and staff are focused on daily business needs—they can’t spare the time and manpower to attempt extreme scaling studies. NCSA’s Private Sector Program (PSP) is able to bring all of the key components together: LS-DYNA developer LSTC; the petascale Blue Waters supercomputer and its hardware manufacturer, Cray; the industrial users with real challenges; and the expertise of PSP’s staff.

"Once Blue Waters was in production, we looked for test cases to run at extreme scale," said Seid Koric, a senior computational resources coordinator with NCSA’s PSP and a University of Illinois adjunct professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering.