ANSYS High-Performance Computing Crucial to Red Bull Racing F1 Championships

HPC Solutions Enable High-Fidelity Insight into Car Performance in Shorter Turnaround Times.

Fueled by race car design improvements made using engineering simulation from ANSYS (NASDAQ: ANSS), Red Bull Racing has won both the Drivers' and Constructors' titles of this season's Formula One Championship — for the second consecutive year. Using ANSYS® high-performance computing (HPC) solutions — which rapidly deliver accurate analysis results, even for large and detailed simulations — the Red Bull Racing team continually and quickly optimized its car design in a virtual testing environment on the team's suite of multi-core compute clusters. The insights gained gave them a decisive speed advantage on the racetrack.

The success, a remarkable achievement for the young team, was confirmed following a double-podium finish at the Korean Grand Prix, from which it established clear leads of 140 points in the Constructors' Championship and 127 points in the Drivers' Championship. Red Bull Racing has been widely acknowledged as producing the fastest cars currently in F1.

While fluid dynamics simulation technology is widely used to predict and manage air flows around F1 cars to increase performance, time restrictions placed on all teams require quick, reliable and efficient simulations that also maintain a high degree of accuracy. As a long-term user of ANSYS high-performance computing solutions, Red Bull Racing has benefited from recent technology advances. High-speed processors (CPUs) and related technologies are engaged to solve computationally intensive problems. Because ANSYS delivers significant HPC enhancements with each new release, the Red Bull Racing team is able to solve not only many more smaller models within the same time period, but also to more quickly solve full-car models that contain hundreds of millions of cells.

"ANSYS HPC technology has ensured that we can test and implement changes quickly and competitively," said Nathan Sykes, CFD Team Leader at Red Bull Racing. "This allows us to turn around simulation results for multiple designs between race qualifications on Fridays and Saturdays, and give our aerodynamics team the important and reliable evidence they need to base vital engineering decisions for the final races on Sunday."

With the level of F1 competition as fierce off the track as it is on, engineering teams race to develop their cars as quickly as possible. "To retain freedom to innovate and adapt the car quickly, we rely on a robust modeling process. This puts new designs on the track quickly. To accomplish our goal, we continually need to leverage technologies that help us introduce and evaluate new ideas. With a significant reduction in process times over the last three years, ANSYS HPC solutions have continued to be the tool of choice for us," Sykes added.

"As an innovation partner of Red Bull Racing, ANSYS is committed to delivering immense business value. Red Bull Racing's championship performance two years in a row is testament to the power of our HPC solutions," said Wim Slagter, ANSYS HPC product strategy manager. "The outcome of channeling our expertise and industry knowledge into improved HPC solutions is providing customers a maximum return on their software and hardware investments."