GE Global Research Receives 2018 HPCwire Editors’ Choice Award for Best Use of HPC in Manufacturing

GE Global Research, GE’s innovation engine that turns research into reality, has been recognized in the annual HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards, presented at the 2018 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC18), in Dallas, Texas. The list of winners was revealed at the HPCwire booth at the event, and on the HPCwire website, located at www.HPCwire.com.   Global Research was recognized with the following honor: Best Use of HPC in Manufacturing to design more efficient wind turbine blades. 

“This year marks the 15th anniversary of The HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards. These awards serve as a pillar in our community, acknowledging major achievements, outstanding leadership and innovative breakthroughs.” Said Tom Tabor CEO of Tabor Communications, publisher of HPCwire.  

“Receiving an HPCwire award signifies an undeniable community support and recognition. We are proud to acknowledge our winners this year and as always to allow our readers voices to be heard. I would like to personally congratulate each and every one of our winners, as their awards come well deserved.”  

Global Research has a Cray supercomputer at its Niskayuna research facility to support a wide array of advanced research initiatives for GE’s Energy and Aviation businesses. Dubbed “Proteus,” in the namesake of GE’s Research Lab founder, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, this supercomputer is used to run highly complex computational fluid dynamic simulations to understand how the design of GE products such as wind turbines can be optimized to achieve maximum energy output. 

The work in wind energy is being led by Dr. Lawrence Cheung, a lead engineer in computational fluid dynamic (CFD) methods at Global Research. Dr. Cheung has used GE’s own supercomputing assets as well as competing for and being awarded time through the U.S. Department of Energy’s INCITE program on Argonne National Lab supercomputer, to run CFD simulations that led to the design of more aerodynamic, efficient wind turbines. In addition, Dr. Cheung also is running CFD simulations to help assess the optimal placement of turbines on a wind farm to maximize wind capture.  

Dr. Cheung explained, “The volume and level of complexity in the data we are studying simply can’t be analyzed without high performance computing assets. Between Global Research’s own HPC assets and the greater access being provided to industry more broadly by the US National Labs to its world leading HPC assets, we’re able to utilize these assets and accelerate critical research endeavors today, more than ever before.”

Dr. Cheung is part of a world-renowned CFD team at Global Research that studies the specific characteristics and patterns of air and liquid flows through complex industrial machines to help optimize the design of new parts such as wind turbine blades that deliver higher efficiencies and better performance. GE scientists also are performing HPC CFD studies to improve the design and performance of jet engines and other power turbomachinery.  

The coveted annual HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards are determined through a nomination and voting process with the global HPCwire community, as well as selections from the HPCwire editors. The awards are an annual feature of the publication and constitute prestigious recognition from the HPC community. These awards are revealed each year to kick off the annual supercomputing conference, which showcases high performance computing, networking, storage, and data analysis.

More information on these awards can be found at the HPCwire website (http://www.HPCwire.com) or on Twitter through the following hashtag: #HPCwireAwards.