Industrial Applications of High-Performance Computing

37

Chapter 3

Industrial Applications

on Supercomputing

in Finland

Per Öster, Anni Jakobsson, and Ari Turunen

3.1 HISTORY OF HPC IN FINLAND STARTED IN SAUNA

e history of HPC in Finland began more than 40 years ago when the

Bank of Finland had a surplus of 20 million Finnish marks in 1969.

e bank asked the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra if they could use the

money for the public good. Professor Osmo A. Wio, while hosting a sauna

CONTENTS

3.1 History of HPC in Finland Started in Sauna 37

3.2 Computer Facilities in the Nordic Countries 39

3.3 HPC in Finland Started with Paper Machine Analysis 39

3.4 Current Provisioning of HPC in Finland (e National HPC

Policy and the Local Ecosystem) 40

3.5 Finnish HPC Ecosystem (National HPC Center: Infrastructure

and Services) 41

3.6 Industrial HPC Applications Landscape (Potential Industrial

Users: Early Adopters and Promising Market Segments) 42

3.7 Pilots, Lessons Learned, Dos and Don’ts, and Success Stories 43

3.7.1 Elmer 43

3.7.2 FinHPC 44

3.7.3 SOMA 44

3.8 Future for HPC in Finland 45

38 ◾ Industrial Applications of High-Performance Computing

evening, relayed the Bank of Finland’s oer to his guests, whereaer

professor Eino Tunkelo immediately suggested using the money to buy

a supercomputer. is resulted in the purchase of a Univac 1108, which

became operational in 1971. is was the start of the predecessor of CSC–

IT Center for Science Ltd (Figure 3.1a and b).

(a)

(b)

FIGURE 3.1 (a) and (b) Univac 1108 back in 1971 © CSC archives.

(b)

(a)

Industrial Applications on Supercomputing in Finland ◾ 39

3.2 COMPUTER FACILITIES IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES

In the early 1970s there were a couple of other computers at Nordic

universities. In Sweden, the big central computer was located at the

premises of the armed forces of the nation. e universities in Sweden did

not have their own computers but used the central computer with a fast

terminal connection.

It was also possible for the researchers in the Nordic countries to

use the supercomputer—IBM 7090—located in Copenhagen at the

Northern Europe University Computing Center for free. To use the

machine, people had to travel to Copenhagen, as telecommunications

networks did not exist. Professor Auvo Sarmanto remembers carrying

magnetic tapes by plane to be loaded into the IBM 7090 computer as

a courier from the University of Helsinki’s Department of Nuclear

Physics to Copenhagen.

3.3 HPC IN FINLAND STARTED WITH

PAPER MACHINE ANALYSIS

From the birth in the 1970s to the present, HPC in Finland has been to a

large extent an academic business. e rst industrial HPC experiments

in Finland were done in the 1980s in collaboration with universities and

governmental R&D institutes. e rst simulation was a vibration analysis

of a full paper machine in 1986 for Valmet. For a long time, paper and pulp

was the leading industry in Finland, and Valmet was one of the biggest

companies in that eld at the time.

e rst industrial users generally performed linear structural analysis

that is routinely done today with standard workstations or PCs. For

example, Saab-Valmet performed an automotive vibration analysis of

Saab Cabriolets. ere was also oshore submarine development with

Rauma-Repola Marine industries that at the time manufactured the Mir

submarines that could descend 6000 meters. ese submarines were later

used in the lming of the movie Titanic.

With time, the need for supercomputers for structural mechanics

has gradually decreased, with computational uid mechanics becoming

the main application eld for industrial use. It was again Valmet that

started to model critical parts of the paper machines in the mid-1990s.

e focus was particularly on the optimal design of a paper machine

headbox that is responsible for the even distribution of the pulp in

the manufacturing process. ere were also new industries that used