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This blog was written successful collaboration with the Microsoft Surface and Azure team. It describes however we utilized Azure high-performance computing (HPC) to prevention time, costs, and revolutionized our merchandise plan portion of manufacturing our Microsoft Surface products.
The Microsoft Surface enactment exists to make iconic end-to-end experiences crossed hardware, software, and services that radical emotion to usage each day. We judge that products are a reflection of the radical who physique them, and that the close tools and infrastructure tin complement the endowment and passionateness of designers and engineers to present innovative products. Product level simulation models are routinely utilized successful day-to-day determination making connected design, reliability, and merchandise features. The enactment is besides connected a multi-year travel to present differentiated products successful a highly businesslike manner. Microsoft Azure HPC plays a captious relation successful enabling this vision. Below is an relationship of however we were capable to bash much with little by leveraging the powerfulness of simulation and Azure HPC.
Surface devices improvement connected Microsoft Azure
I’m a Principal Engineer astatine Microsoft and a structural analyst. I’ve been a dense idiosyncratic of Azure HPC and an aboriginal adopter of Azure A8 and A9 virtual machines. In 2015, with the assistance of our Surface IT team, we deployed and solved galore issues with Abaqus (a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software) implementation successful Azure HPC. By 2016, merchandise level structural simulations for Surface Pro 4 and the archetypal Surface laptop had afloat migrated to Azure HPC from on-premises servers. Large models with millions of degrees of state became regular and easy solved connected Azure HPC. This aboriginal usage of simulations enabled occupation solving for plan engineers tasked with robustness and reliability metrics. Usage grew on with merchandise enactment growth. Along with my colleagues Pritul Shah, Senior Director of a transverse merchandise engineering team, and Jarkko Sihvonen, Senior Engineer of the IT Infrastructure and Services team, we collaborated to standard up structural simulation footprint successful our organization. The imaginativeness to physique a planetary simulation squad meant entree to computing servers successful Western North America and Southeast Asia which was easy deployed by the Surface IT and Azure HPC teams.
Product development: Surface laptop
The availability of Azure HPC for structural simulations utilizing Abaqus helped marque this a superior improvement instrumentality for merchandise design. Design concepts created successful integer computer-aided plan (CAD) systems are translated into FEA exemplary successful detail. These are existent integer prototypes and represent each large subsystems successful the device. The expert tin usage FEA models to enforce antithetic trial and reliability conditions successful a virtual situation and find feasibility. In a fewer days, hundreds of simulations are executed to measure assorted plan ideas and solutions to marque the instrumentality robust. Subsequently, the selected plan becomes a protype and past taxable to rigorous investigating for real-world usage conditions. There are aggregate feedback loops built into our engineering process to comparison existent tests and FEA results for exemplary validation.
In the archetypal graphics depicted above, a integer prototype (FEA model) laptop instrumentality is set-up to driblet connected its country to the floor. This models the real-world carnal investigating that is conducted successful our Reliability Engineering labs. The interaction velocity for a fixed tallness is the archetypal information for the dynamic simulation. The dynamic driblet simulation is executed connected hundreds of cores of an Azure HPC clump utilizing Abaqus solver. We utilized the Abaqus and Explicit solver which is known for its robust and close solution for high-speed, nonlinear, dynamic events specified arsenic user electronics driblet investigating and automotive crashworthiness. These solvers are optimized particularly for Azure HPC clusters and alteration scaling to thousands of cores for accelerated throughputs. The simulation jobs implicit successful a substance of a fewer hours connected these optimized Azure HPC servers alternatively of the days it utilized to instrumentality previously. The results are reviewed by the analysts and accent levels are checked against worldly limits. Design teams and analysts past reappraisal the reports and marque plan updates. This rhythm continues successful precise speedy loops arsenic the Azure HPC servers alteration accelerated turnaround for reviews.
The 2nd graphic depicts an illustration of the hinge successful the instrumentality that was optimized for strength. The squad was capable to visualize the interaction induced question and accent levels of the hinge interior parts from the simulation. This enabled america to isolate the main contented and marque the close plan improvements. This penetration helped redesign the hinge assembly to origin little accent levels. Significant clip was saved successful the plan process arsenic lone 1 iteration was needed for success. Tooling, carnal prototyping, and investigating costs were besides saved.
Presently, the full Microsoft Surface merchandise enactment utilizes this attack of validating plan with integer prototypes (FEA models) tally connected Azure HPC clusters. Thousands of simulation jobs are executed routinely successful a substance of weeks to alteration cutting-edge designs that person precise precocious reliability and lawsuit satisfaction.
What’s next
The squad is present focused connected deploying much scalable simulation and Azure HPC assets for multi-disciplinary teams and for multi-physics modeling. There is simply a immense accidental to alteration instrumentality learning and AI successful merchandise creation. Azure HPC and the partnerships wrong Microsoft organizations volition beryllium leveraged to thrust ample standard innovations astatine a accelerated speed. We are besides continuing this integer translation travel with exemplary based systems engineering (MBSE) with the V4 Institute. World-class organizations looking to bash much with little and connected a quest for scaling integer simulations volition greatly payment from collaborating with Azure.
Learn More
- Learn much astir Azure HPC.
- Get the latest Azure HPC content.
- Find retired however Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing tin assistance you clasp caller plan and manufacturing paradigms.
The station Azure high-performance computing leads to processing astonishing products astatine Microsoft Surface appeared archetypal connected Microsoft Azure Blog.