Special Simulation (2017) - Simulating Electrical Systems

www.usinenouvelle.com www.industrie-techno.com 1

3510 . special feature magazine n° 2 . april 6 2017 . not to be sold separately

AUTOMOTIVE, SHIPBUILDING, AEROSPACE…

SIMULATING ELECTRICAL SySTEMS

CEA at the heart of innovation for extreme computing and Big Data CEA and Bull are co-designing exascale technologies

1

Harnessing exascale computing and data processing will open unexplored perspectives for the numerical simulation of complex physical phenomena and industrial objects, by 2020 and beyond.

In order to tackle this challenge, CEA, in partnership with Atos, is co-designing technologies to: Reduce energy consumption Process and manage massive flows of data Increase performance, efficiency and modularity of supercomputer architectures Design fault-tolerant architectures 1 - At the scale of a billion of billions of operations per second (exaFlops) and memory bytes (exaBytes).

TERA 1000, developed in partnership with Atos/Bull according to CEA requirements and installed in 2016, is foreshadowing exascale supercomputers.

CEA boosts industrial innovation Located at CEA Bruyèresle-Châtel site, TGCC (CEA Very Large Computing Centre) hosts CCRT (Computing Centre for Research and Technology), a shared infrastructure optimized for HPC. CCRT partners receive 1.5 Pflops of computing power, as well as services and expertise supported by CEA HPC team skills – an essential asset for their numerical simulations.

Numerical simulation of combusion in an helicopter turbo-engine – TURBOMECA

Aero-acoustic numerical simulation on an automotive interior ventilation system – VALEO

CCRT partners Airbus Safran Launchers, Areva, Cerfacs, EDF, IFPEN, Ineris, IRSN, L’Oréal, SafranTech, SAFRAN Aero Boosters, SAFRAN Aircraft Engines, SAFRAN Helicopter Engines, SOLEIL,Thales, Thales Alenia Space, Valeo, CEA as well as FranceGénomique consortium (supported by French government PIA).

2

To know more www-ccrt.cea.fr Contact christine.menache@cea.fr

Simulation of surface currents on an aircraft nose radome - THALES

SIMULATION

www.usinenouvelle.com www.industrie-techno.com 1

Supplément du xxx . xx xxxxx 2017 . ne peut être vendu Séparément

AUTOMOTIVE, SHIPBUILDING, AEROSPACE…

SIMULATING ELECTRICAL SySTEMS

The PPS 5000 thruster currently being tested by Safran Aircraft Engines.

NEW FIELDS OF APPLICATION

Sommaire ESSENTIALS

A year of simulation

P. 4

COMPETITION

L

Diota - Numerical simulation trophies grand prize winner P. 6 INTERVIEW

Thierry Breton, CEO of Atos

P. 8

DOSSIER SETTING SIGHTS ON ELECTRIC PROPULSION THE CAR INDUSTRY

Winning the race for battery life

P. 12

AERONAUTICS

Focus on electric planes

P. 18

SPACE

Accelerating the launch of satellites P. 22 SHIPBUILDING

The quest for compact systems P. 24 MAINTENANCE

The digital twin: a protective brother

P. 26

RESEARCH

Numerical simulation - The heart of IRTs P. 28 ENERGY

Designing more energy efficient supercomputers P. 34 SUCCESS STORY

The Cosmo Company designs computer models of complex systems P. 36 PORTFOLIO

Trompe-l’œil

P. 38

TOOL

Optimizing 3D printing P. 42

Président, directeur de la publication : Julien Elmaleh Directrice générale déléguée : Isabelle André Directeur du pôle industrie : Pierre-Dominique Lucas Directrice de la rédaction : Christine Kerdellant Directrice adjointe de la rédaction : Anne Debray Rédacteur en chef édition : Guillaume Dessaix Direction artistique : Eudes Bulard Coordinatrice éditoriale : Aurélie Barbaux Ont participé à ce numéro : Claire Laborde et Rebecca Lecauchois (secrétariat de rédaction) ; Capucine Ragot et Sylvie Louvet (maquette) « L’Usine Nouvelle » n° 3510 – Cahier numéro 2 6 avril 2017 (commission paritaire n° 0712T81903) Ne peut être vendu séparément Une publication du groupe Gisi, Antony Parc II 10 place du Général-de-Gaulle - BP 20156 - 92186 Antony Cedex Impression : Roto France Impression 77185 Lognes Photo de couverture : D.R.

L’USINE NOUVELLE I SPECIAL FEATURE MAGAZINE N° 2 I APRIL 6 2017

et’s not make the mistake of thinking that modeling and simulation serve only to replace expensive physical tests. The renowned epidemiologist Franck Varenne listed twenty uses, classified into five families, of numerical models at the first scientific colloquium on modeling, held at the CNRS in December 2016. These five families are: observation/ experimentation, intelligible presentation, theorization, discussion, and decision-making. Numerical simulation’s wealth of uses makes it an essential discipline for researchers and manufacturers, helping them idenAURÉLIE tify the challenges for more sustainable, eco-friendly BARBAUX ASSISTANT EDITOR transport and industry.

We examine these diverse challenges throughout this special issue, especially in our report on the craze for electric transport: testing new energy sources, developing new types of battery, making fuel cells more compact, optimizing the size of thermal propulsion systems, reducing the time it takes to put satellites into orbit, simulating airflows around hybrid planes, optimizing composites for marine power, and tracking down heat energy (calories) in 3D electrical components.

New fields of application for simulation are constantly emerging, especially in production processes by optimizing 3D printing. Combi- New fields of application ned with big data, simulation is now used for simulation are for preventative maintenance via digital constantly emerging, twins, developing multimodal transport, especially in production and modeling complex systems such as processes. power grids and transport networks.

Simulation is even moving beyond the physical sciences to help develop multidisciplinary design methods.

We should not overlook the energy cost of these capabilities. The race towards exascale computing power must therefore be accompanied by a search for greater energy efficiency. This is a challenge for manufacturers and other stakeholders. “The issue here is not about increasing or limiting computing power, but rather reflecting on how to make better use of it,” said Alain Fuchs, president of the CNRS, in his opening address at the first numerical simulation colloquium last December. A great deal of work lies ahead. ❚❚

3

SIMULATION

Modeling Takes a Close Look at Itself

LAuReNT PASCAL ; D.R.

In December of 2016, in what was a world first, the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the French Academy of Technology organized an unprecedented modeling colloquium. The purpose of which was to reflect on the successes and especially the limitations of numerical models. “There has never been a colloquium to critically examine and ask general questions about numerical modeling. In scientific circles, it remains a technical subject,” said Alain Pavé, a lecturer/researcher, biological modeling expert, member of the French Academy of Technology, and the colloquium’s coorganizer. This first colloquium carefully put to one side controversial issues such as the validity of particular “The issue here is not models about limiting or developing computing especially in economics power, but rather the reflecting on how to transparency make better use of it.” of simulation tools on the market, and ethical questions.

These issues will be studied at the next colloquium, planned for the end of 2017.

Speakers sought to answer three simpler questions: Do we need ever more computing power? Should models be simplified or made more complex? Can modeling be a vehicle of communication between scientific, technological, and economic players? “To a great extent, these questions contain their own answers,” said Pavé. Yet these are not bland topics, as Alain Fuchs - president of the CNRS - observed during his introductory address at the colloquium: “The issue here is not about limiting or developing computing power, but rather reflecting on how to make better use of it,” Fuschs said from the outset, before alerting attendees to numerical simulation’s false charms, especially in its scientific field of expertise: “Molecular simulation has been slightly oversold to the pharmaceuticals industry.”

Could this be another topic for the next colloquium? ❚❚ aurélie BarBaux

4

Pangea’s compute blades are connected by almost 120 km of optical fibers.

Algorithms

6.7 PETAFLOPS FOR TOTAL In 2016, Total tripled the capacity of its Pangea supercomputer from 2.3 to 6.7 petaflops. In November 2016, this computer was placed 16th on the Top500 list, which ranks all the world’s supercomputers according to their computing power. “This power will help us improve our performance and cut costs,” said Arnaud Breuillac, president of exploration & production at Total. Pangea is a decision-support tool for oilfield exploitation and management. The previous version - built from SGI’s Ice X supercomputer - had 110 Intel Xeon E5-2670 V1 processing cores

and 9.2 petabytes of storage. The latest version uses M-Cell technology and has an extra 4,608 nodes based on Intel’s Xeon E5-2600 V3 processor - i.e. 110,592 computing cores and an additional 589 terabytes of memory. Its storage capacity has been increased to 18.4 petabytes.

This increased power will enable Total to use algorithms developed by its R&D department. These algorithms are used to image increasingly complex zones and numerically simulate oilfields, integrating 3D seismic data relating to an area on a given timescale. ❚❚ Jean-François Prevéraud

Computing

THE WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL SUPERCOMPUTER IS 100% CHINESE The world’s most powerful supercomputer is Chinese. The Sunway Taihulight supercomputer has a total of 40,960 processors. What’s distinctive is that they are ShenWei - i.e.

100% Chinese - rather than Intel processors.

These ShenWei processors were developed by the Chinese National Center for HighPerformance Systems Engineering Research (NRCPC). Each processor has 3 teraflops of power and 260 cores. This supercomputer is housed at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, near Shanghai and has a theoretical performance of 125.4 petaflops (millions of billions of floating point operations per second). The Sunway Taihulight

the sunway taihulight supercomputer has a theoretical performance of 125.4 petaflops.

supercomputer is three times more powerful than the Chinese Tianhe-2 system, which was until now the world’s top-ranked supercomputer. It is also five times more powerful than the fastest US system - Titan - which is currently ranked third in the world. Japan has announced its intention to develop a 130-petaflop supercomputer with Fujistu by 2018. ❚❚ Juliette raynal

SIMULATION

ccrT

Industry

COBALT TRIPLES THE POWER OF ARAIN

A LABORATORY FOR NAVAL SHIPBUILDING DCNS, Centrale Nantes engineering school and the University of Nantes have set up a joint laboratory of marine technology (JLMT) to innovate in the field of naval shipbuilding.

The laboratory will have a budget of 4.5 million euros for its operations over a three-year period. It will support the teams at Centrale Nantes and the University of Nantes, which also receive funding from the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), and the research and technology departments of DCNS Research. Some thirty researchers will focus on three scientific topics: simulators for naval

DCNS, Centrale Nantes and the University of Nantes formalize the set up of the JLMT on October 14, 2016.

hydrodynamics; multiphysics modeling for numerical simulation of innovative structures and materials; and additive manufacturing of large-scale components. ❚❚ A. B.

Software

RESEARCH CHAIR ON DIGITAL METALLURGY AT MINES PARISTECH

Industrialists have known for thirty years how to simulate materials at the macro level. However, it is now known that the properties of metal parts (resistance to fatigue, corrosion, etc.) depend on their microstructure, which can be modified by a large number of mechanisms (heat treatments, deformations, etc.). To study and simulate these evolutions in a software program, Mines ParisTech recent-

ly created the Digimu chair. Headed by Marc Bernacki, a teacher at the School’s Materials Training Center (Cemef ), and with a budget of 1.23 million euros over four years, it brings together eight partners, six of whom are industrialists (ArcelorMittal, Areva, Ascometal, Aubert &Duval, CEA and Safran), as well as Transvalor, Mines ParisTech’s valuation and transfer subsidiary that publishes the software. ❚❚ A. B.

A simulator to better compensate for vibrations

FRAuNHOFER ; D.R.

When the engines start up, the whole cargo begins to vibrate. All vessel components run the risk of being damaged, including the electrical connectors, the powertrain, pipes, floors, ceilings and even the ship’s hull. To limit potential damage, particularly with the help of active devices to offset the vibrations, the German laboratories of Fraunhofer Adaptronics Alliance have developed a simulation software program. This embedded system simulates the vibrations along with the effects of “adaptronics” systems capable of reducing them, using sensors to measure the local vibrations and produce counter-vibrations. The simulator dispenses with the need for costly prototypes and can be used in other fields besides shipbuilding. ❚❚ ThIerry LucaS

L’USiNe NOUveLLe I SPECIAL FEATuRE MAGAZINE N° 2 I APRIL 6 2017

CCRT, the consortium set up to provide high performance computing resources, has acquired Bull’s Cobalt supercomputer, capable of 1,479 petaflops at peak power, three times more powerful than the current computer installed in 2012 (420 teraflops).

The CCRT is a partnership between the CEA and 13 French manufacturers requiring large scientific computations, including Airbus Defence and Space, Areva, EDF, Herakles, L’Oréal, Safran, Thales, Snecma, Turbomeca and Valeo.

Business

HPE TAKES OVER SILICON GRAPHICS

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has bought Silicon Graphics, once the top contender in high performance computing, for 275 million dollars. The star of computing in the 1980s and 1990s, the American enterprise had already been taken over by Rackable in 2009, after filing for bankruptcy. The acquisition of the business and its 1,100 employees across the world offers HPE a means to consolidate its position, especially in the public sector and life sciences research areas.

Start-up

SIMFORHEALTH SIMULATES HEALTH

Located in Bordeaux, France, Interaction Healthcare is a startup to keep an eye on. Specializing in digital simulation of clinical cases, the company raised 5 million euros in 2016 from the investment fund Audacia, Bpifrance and France’s Nouvelle Aquitaine region. Its purpose: to develop Simforhealth, an immersive and interactive serious game approach to training health care professionals.

5

SIMULATION

INNoVAtIoN tRoPHY NUmtEcH

Numtech’s online NOA (news on your atmosphere) service, available on the Fitbit and Runtastic platforms, provides a health index according to air quality, weather risks, and users’ geolocation and health status. “We calculate air quality to a resolution of 5­10 meters,” said Pierre Beal, Numtech’s CEO. “This provides data about your particular street rather than the one next to it.” Weather and pollutant­dispersion data relies on a modest­sized intensive computing platform (20 teraflops). Air­quality fore­ casts are then fine­tuned using a big data platform.

SmE tRoPHY NExIo

Diota was rewarded for its augmented reality software dedicated to industry.

Competition

DIOTA - NUMERICAL SIMULATION TROPHIES GRAND PRIZE WINNER

T

he winners of the 2017 Numerical Simulation Trophies, organized by Usine Digitale in partnership with Tera­ tec were revealed at the École Polytech­ nique on 28 June 2016. Jean Gonnord, former head of the numerical simulation program at the French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energy Commission (CEA), received the simulation Person of the Year trophy. The other five prize­ winners were as follows:

GRAND PRIZE DIotA

Diota was set up in 2009 and has be­ come well­known with its augmented reality software designed for industry, which operates without ‘markers’. This software immediately identifies any object whose 3D model is in its library, whereas other software programs have to spatially locate before recognizing objects. The technology was developed in partnership with the CEA. The other benefit of this software is that augmented reality applications can be created in a few clicks. With customers including To­ tal, Diota hopes to become the European leader in industrial augmented reality within the next two years. The company 6

is well on the way to achieving its goal.

Catia Composer, Dassault Systèmes’ design software, already features a ‘Diota’ button for exporting CAD models to an augmented reality application. Further announcements are expected with lea­ ding software vendors.

StARt-UP tRoPHY REAlIZ3D

Imagine you could visit the apartment or house of your choice before it was even built. Realiz3D, a Paris­based start­up, offers precisely this service without any need to install customers’ software. You can explore properties in 3D, choose options, view the rendering, and find out the cost all on a simple tablet.

Realiz3D developed its cloud compu­ ting servers and very greedy algorithm for graphics processing in collaboration with the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (INRIA). The company’s platform has 35.4 teraflops of computing power, which is enough for 200­250 users at once. Around thirty customers from the construction industry, including Bouygues and Vinci, are already using Realiz3D, available since 2013.

Nexio Technologies, a Toulouse­based SME, has specialized in reducing com­ puting time in order to make a name for itself in electromagnetic simulation.

Nexio was one of the first companies to offer a model­reduction technique based on adaptive cross approximation (ACA). In this way model size, and hence computing time, have been reduced ten­ fold. With help from the French General Directorate for Armament and the HPC­ SME Program, Nexio has integrated parallel computing techniques to distri­ bute operations over several processors.

A feat that has caught the eye of a major Japanese group, interested in the simu­ lation of electromagnetic fields on an entire plane.

collABoRAtIoN tRoPHY oNERA AND ANDHEo

Computing time is now 300 times fas­ ter, with only a tiny loss of accuracy. A new milestone has been reached in the area of multiphysics simulation thanks to a partnership between the French Aerospace Research Agency (ONERA) and the SME Andheo. Aerothermal cou­ pling, an innovative technique developed

by ONERA’s researchers, was at the ori­ gin of this project. The Safran Group soon expressed interest in the technique, and Andheo applied the methods developed

by ONERA’s researchers. Flight simula­ tion, including take­off, cruising, changes in altitude, and landing, now takes just two hours. An overall view of engine stress is enabling Safran to fine­tune its analyses. ❚❚ tHE EDItoRIAl StAFF

VERIFY AND OPTIMIZE YOUR DESIGNS with COMSOL Multiphysics The evolution of computational tools for numerical simulation of physics-based systems has reached a major milestone.

®

Surpass design challenges with ease using COMSOL Multiphysics®. Work with its powerful mathematical modeling tools and solver technology to deliver accurate and comprehensive simulation results.

Develop custom applications using the Application Builder and deploy them within your organization and to customers worldwide with a local installation of COMSOL Server™.

Benefit from the power of multiphysics today comsol.com/products

7 © Copyright 2017 COMSOL. COMSOL, the COMSOL logo, COMSOL Multiphysics, Capture the Concept, COMSOL Desktop, COMSOL Server, and LiveLink are either registered trademarks or trademarks of COMSOL AB. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners, and COMSOL AB and its subsidiaries and products are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or supported by those trademark owners. For a list of such trademark owners, see www.comsol.com/trademarks.

simulation

INTERVIEW

“WE Will BuilD Quantum ComPutERs” For thierry Breton, CEO of Atos, training new generations of engineers in quantum computing and artificial intelligence is more than a need it’s a duty.

INTERVIEWED BY AuRélIE BARBAux AND PAscAl GATEAuD

People have been talking about an «Airbus of high-performance computing.» The project is backed by France, Italy, spain and luxembourg, with Atos playing a central role. How far have we got with this?

Europe has decided to accentuate the roll-out of supercomputers (HPCs). The pioneering countries you mentioned supported the idea and we’ve done everything to bring in Germany too. The European Commission is aiming to create a major European HPC industry by developing an ecosystem that includes semiconductors. The Commission also wants to raise awareness of HPCs as a major driver of productivity and innovation by promoting their use in research institutes and universities. The purpose is to work out new uses, algorithms and applications, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. As the world number three and leading European manufacturer of supercomputers, Atos is obviously a major stakeholder in this project.

Atos invests heavily in R&D. What are your main research topics?

Atos has 16 R&D centers worldwide and invests 300 million Euros a year in research and development. We establish our research areas and needs up to 2025-2030 with our clients.

Whether companies or governments, our partners know how to anticipate the volume of data they will have to process.

“teams must be trained to work as though we already had quantum computers. this year, we’re launching our first quantum learning machines to train our own engineers.”

8

We will shortly achieve exascale computing power (a billion billion operations per second) and our electronic circuits will soon be at the limits of Moore’s Law. Computer cores will be so dense that we’ll have reached the limit of matter. And so much heat will be given off that it will be impossible to cool supercomputers. It’s now that we need to start working on the next generation, i.e. quantum computers.

How are we preparing for quantum computing?

Teams must be trained to work as though we already had quantum computers. We’re already one of the first companies able to simulate quantum computers in our high-performance systems. This year, we’re launching our first quantum learning machines to train our own engineers. These machines simulate up to 40 qubits (quantum bits), which, according to the principle of superposition, can simultaneously have the values of 0 and 1 in quantum computing. This exponentially increases quantum computers’ processing capacity. The difficulty lies in making these qubit sets, which encounter decoherence problems in preserving the quantum laws of superposition and entanglement. As soon as a system is entangled with other external systems, it loses its quantum capacity. Daniel Estève’s team at the French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission (CEA), one of Atos Quantum’s scientific councils, is working to make hybrid quantum circuits, coupling superconducting qubits and qubits created from diamond impurities. His teams are striving to produce new generations of circuits that operate as long as possible without decoherence. Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, with which we have links, is working on another type of technology: photonic computers at room temperature.

What is the next stage?

Our objective is to train new generations of engineers for the arrival of these quantum computers, sometime between 2025 and 2035. Although quantum computers will have extraordinary computing power, they’ll probably be coupled or connected to a HPC. And Atos will build them; it’s what we do. This is also a European sovereignty issue. For the time being, however, there is no language, programming, or interface. We therefore need to train young scientists to think with almost infinite computing power and have a different understanding of modeling, simulation, and programming.

We are of course also working on cryptology. This is because when the first quantum computer becomes operational, it will be so powerful that it will be able to crack all RSA encryption algorithms, which form the basis of many current security systems. An Atos team is studying algorithms that can resist attack from quantum computers. This is obviously of interest to the French Network and Information Security Agency (ANSSI), with which we collaborate. We must get ready to protect 5G communications, which will be arriving in 2019 or 2020. Quantum-safe algorithms should be ready before the arrival of quantum computers.

Who is funding this quantum computing research?

The US National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Defense fund our American competitors. The Chinese

simulation

PAsCAl GuittEt

have government funding. Our research is done with a small amount of external funding. We’re following with interest the European Commission’s initiatives, not only for developing standard HPCs but also for quantum computing.

The Commission, which has launched a quantum sensors and computers program with over 1.3 billion euros of funding, is fully aware that quantum physics will be one of the 21st century’s real technological and scientific revolutions.

Artificial intelligence is expected to be one these 21st-century revolutions. Do you see an ethical problem with it?

Artificial intelligence certainly raises issues since it will provide ever greater capacity to assist decision-making. We need to integrate this capacity. There are obviously important political aspects, especially with regard to protecting privacy and individuals. Bioethics is becoming an essential matter l’usINE NouVEllE i sPECiAl FEAtuRE MAGAZiNE N° 2 i APRil 6 2017

for medical applications. Artificial intelligence such as that developed by Atos, i.e. mainly for industrial use, is not at this stage. Once we’ve achieved the computing power expected by 2025-2030, we’ll have completely changed our capacity to anticipate and will need specialists and users fully trained in this new environment. From an ethical perspective, there’s obviously a risk while this knowledge and control of its use is in the hands of a few people. But I’ve been following these issues for a long time and remain basically optimistic. Let’s remember that we’re dealing with long cycles. Technological changes are never achieved in less than 25 years, i.e. a generation. Let’s face up to our responsibilities, it’s up to us to train and raise the awareness of those who will come after us.

This duty to hand on to the next generation is, in a nutshell, the history of scientific and technological development and, indeed, the history of humankind. ❚❚ 9

D.R.

10

SimULatiOn

TransporT

Setting SigHtS On eLeCtRiC PROPULSiOn Driven by environmental constraints, electric propulsion is now essential in every sector: from the car and aeronautics industries to shipbuilding and the space industry. Now it’s time to optimize electric propulsion by simulating systems. by gUiLLaUme LeCOmPte-bOinet

t The HY4 is an electrically powered 4 passenger aircraft developed

by DLR, the German aerospace research center.

L’usine nouveLLe i SPECiAL FEATURE MAGAZiNE N° 2 i APRiL 6 2017

ransport, and not just the car industry, is increasingly backing electric power. Manufacturers, laboratories, technological research institutes, and universities are all working to find reliable electric drivetrain and propulsion solutions for cars, ships, satellites, and other aircraft. There are plenty of challenges. We need to switch to new generation batteries, adapt fuel cells, integrate these new systems into cabins and ships hulls, and ensure they are completely safe. Every means of transport has specific obstacles to be overcome.

In the car industry, battery life and cost must be drastically improved. Faster positioning of electric-powered satellites is required in the space industry. And one of the shipbuilding industry’s constraints is electrical-equipment size. Manufacturers and laboratories are using numerical simulation tools for this work to partly do without expensive physical tests. Some tasks, such as modeling system architecture, can be done using existing tools on the market, such as Catia and Dymola. But for most simulation, manufacturers and research centers have to develop their own codes using generic Matlan or Comsol tools. Whether for simulating airflows in the aeronautics industry or batteries’ electrochemistry in the car industry, the issues are too specific for commercial software. More and more partnerships are therefore springing up between industry and research laboratories, sometimes even leading to the establishment of research chairs. ❚❚ 11

simulation

WinninG tHe Race foR BatteRy life Modeling batteries and fuel cells will play a vital role in car manufacturers’ progress over the next five years.

By Guillaume lecompte-Boinet

12

i

f they still needed any convincing, the pollution peaks experienced in France’s big cities this winter should reinforce car manufacturers in their decision to opt for electric cars. According to Volkswagen, which has announced plans to launch around thirty electric car models by 2025, this will be a major growth market. The French manufacturer Renault, which has long believed in electric cars and has invested 4 billion euros in them since 2010, has just launched the Zoé 3. Renault expects to sell over 100,000 Zoé 3s by 2020, and has already sold 24,000 Zoé 2s in 2016 and a total of 50,000 Zoés since launching this model.

In the US, Tesla and Panasonic have invested 5 billion dollars in a huge battery factory, while Daimler plans to steal a march on Tesla by releasing a dozen electric car models between now and 2020-2025. Chinese car manufacturers are also making rapid progress. Toyota, one of the trailblazers with its hybrid vehicles, did not hesitate about launching into highly advanced fuel cell technology with

PAgECRAn

THE CAR INDUSTRY

simulation

Zoé 3’s secrets Renault redoubled its inventiveness to extend the Zoé 3’s range.

This model can now be driven 400 km without recharging the battery.

its Mirai. “We sold 3,000 Mirai models in 2016 and bank on selling 30,000 by 2020,” said Gerald Killmann, vicepresident R&D of Toyota Motor Europe. In a sign of the times, the French government has just decided to abolish the environmental bonus for hybrid vehicles (except for rechargeable models) and focus this tax incentive on 100% electric cars.

Modeling to limit Risks

But despite these announcements, it should not be forgotten that this very new market’s future involves tackling a few challenges. “When it comes to electric cars, it’s quite simple: we need to increase battery life, reduce charging time without impairing battery life, and of course lower the price and hence cut costs,” said Marc Soulas, Renault’s vice-president for electric-vehicle engineering. Generally speaking, buyers look at the cost of a vehicle before taking an interest in its pollution level. And travelers want to know if they will be able to charge their car l’USINE NoUvEllE i SPECiAL FEATURE MAgAZinE n° 2 i APRiL 6 2017

Whereas Renault’s star electric car, the Zoé 2, only had an nEDC (new European Driving Cycle) rated range of approximately 200 km, i.e. without using on-board electrical accessories (air conditioning, radio, etc.), the Zoé 3’s nEDC range is 400 km (270-300 km in normal conditions). Renault has reworked all the Zoé’s main components to achieve this result. its lithium-ion battery capacity was increased from 22 kWh to 41 kWh and is just 21 kg heavier (total battery weight: 300 kg). “We’ve also increased engine efficiency,” explained Marc Soulas, Renault’s vice-president for electric-vehicle engineering. Renault’s teams made the engine more compact by optimizing its power electronics, for example by using a wound rotor and low-friction bearings. One of the new Zoé’s secrets is its built-in Chameleon

charger for alternating current (AC) battery charging. A power inverter between the battery and engine converts the battery’s direct current into alternating current. “This system is 3-4 times cheaper and the Chameleon charger has enabled us to add 30 km to the Zoé’s range,” said Soulas.

Another innovation is a reversible heat pump to control the air-conditioning system, which has given another 15 km of range. Renault has also gained approximately 20 km by developing a new more efficient regenerative braking system. This recovers energy, which is continuously converted by the Chameleon system and stored in the battery. ❚❚

battery without spending the night in a hotel. Renault has surpassed a symbolic milestone by practically doubling the Zoé’s range to almost 300 km in normal driving conditions (400 km, according to the New European Driving Cycle [NEDC]). “We’ve worked on all the main drivechain components: battery, engine, and charging system,” said Soulas [see box below].

Due to the complexity of what happens inside batteries, numerical simulation is essential to make lithium-ion batteries more compact and increase their life without threatening safety. An electrochemical reaction occurs between lithium-ion batteries’ two elecsimulation issues trodes (the positive anode and negative cathode) ◗ Increasing lithium-ion thanks to active materials, which enable lithium battery life ions to migrate from one electrode to the other. ◗ Testing new types of The anode is made of a nickel/manganese/cobalt battery and their components ceramic compound, while graphite is generally used for the cathode. Migration must be quick and comple◗ Making fuel cells more compact and cheaper tely reversible if batteries are to have a long enough 13

simulation

“We’re also studying lithium-sulfur technology”

What is the role of numerical simulation in your battery research?

We need to understand ion diffusion and transport properties in electrodes and electrolytes according to the electrochemical system. Simulation helps give us a quicker understanding of how a battery’s active materials behave.

What type of simulation do you carry out?

We carry out infinitely small calculations on a space-time scale of 0.1 nanometer and 100 picoseconds.

This helps us bring to light promising active materials for various

applications and hence increase battery life. The more the active material functions at high potential, the better the battery will perform.

But some phenomena have to be modeled on a larger space-time scale (10 nanometers and 100 nanoseconds). We also work on an even bigger space-time scale (1 micrometer and 0.1 seconds), for example, to improve characterization of phenomena at the interfaces of various materials.

What practical results do you expect to obtain from this?

We’re carrying out fundamental theoretical research to find the best active materials for improving battery performance. Our industrial partners will then have the major task of working out dimensions. This is when we move into the engineering

life. “A battery’s properties, its power and energy density, depend on the active materials,” explained Cédric Chazel, a CNRS researcher and RS2E network’s intellectual property manager. Chazel works at the Laboratory for Reactivity and Solids Chemistry (LRCS) in Amiens, especially on modeling lithium-ion batteries by coding in tools such as Matlab and Comsol. One of the key issues in our modeling work is studying active materials’ diffusion mechanisms,” said Julien Marie, team leader of Renault’s battery development project. Active materials migrate through layers of aluminum and copper, which form a very complex environment.

Due to a lack of simulation tools on the market, Renault’s simulation work is the result of codes developed in-house.

Renault has used data from PhD theses it funded. One goal is to make the top of batteries less bulky so that they lie as flat as possible and are better integrated into the chassis.

Researchers are also trying to optimize the amount of active materials according to the battery life and power desired.

Basically, the more active materials there are in batteries, the heavier they are and the longer battery life they have.

For this reason, hybrid vehicles’ rechargeable batteries have very thin cells, short charging time, but less battery life. “We constantly have to trade off all these factors,” said Marie. Experiments to vary the composition of active materials have also been carried out. For example, increasing the amount of nickel in order to store more lithium. But manufacturers need to keep checks on this cocktail since 14

phase. For this work, we all meet up every six months with 15 or so industrial partners, including Renault, Airbus, and the RS2E network. There are still a lot of real-life experiments to be carried out!

What are the alternatives to lithium-ion batteries?

We’re exploring several avenues of research at the Laboratory for Reactivity and Solids Chemistry (LRCS) in Amiens: lithium-air batteries, of course - which still need a lot of research - as well as lithiumsulfur batteries. This technology is very promising for both the car and aeronautics industries. We’re also studying a battery that self-charges by light. ❚❚

it is highly reactive and may endanger passengers. Another avenue that has been explored is enriching graphite with silicon, again to store more lithium. But here too, there are material stability issues.

New Avenues of Research Worth Exploring

Safety is at the heart of all these challenges. We can all recall cases of lithium-ion batteries exploding or catching fire, whether in Boeing 787s or smartphones. For this reason, simulation is also used to sort out thermal issues. “During motorway journeys, drivers need to recharge their car battery quickly, which means having an appropriate, effective cooling system,” said Marie. Renault’s teams are working on these issues, especially via Catia numerical-design tools to simulate heating/cooling cycles. Renault has also developed its own tools that engineers code in Matlab. “We specify the physical laws and the system calculates everything automatically,” said Marie. Based on these calculations, Renault is expected to opt for a liquid (water or fluid) cooling system for the Zoé rather than an air-cooling system.

Other teams are using “entropimetry” to measure battery charge and health status. Rachid Yazami, a CNRS researcher on a temporary assignment at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, is working in this field. “Analyzing entropy/enthalpy charts enables us to establish with great precision not only a battery’s health status but also to some extent its history, i.e. the conditions in which it has aged.

D.R.

cédRic cHaZel, CNRS researcher and RS2E network’s intellectual property manager (17 universities, 3 technology transfer centers, and approximately 15 industrial partners)

simulation

fuel cells - a credible alternative

700 bars in complete safety. “We designed the fuel cell ourselves,” said Killmann. The Mirai has just two fuel cells - compared to four in the first prototypes - to make the engine a few kilos lighter.

Research was also carried out on the electrolyte membrane, making it two-thirds thinner so that hydrogen can circulate more easily. Toyota has made the fuel cell 48% lighter and 26% more powerful. Many challenges still need to be tackled, above all the price since the Mirai currently costs almost 80,000 euros. ❚❚

Simulating thermodynamic diagrams enables us to predict battery lifespan,” explained Yazami.

All this research will eventually enable batteries to be recharged faster in complete safety. But that’s not all since modern electric vehicles also feature power electronics, which helps reduce heat loss while also enabling more electrical power to pass through the same volume. Power electronics is one factor influencing charging capacity.

Silicon chips are commonly used in today’s car industry.

But new gallium-based components will be arriving from 2020-2022 onwards. These components will take things to the next level, increasing battery performance by 10-20%.

To achieve this goal, Renault is working with the French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission (CEA), research laboratories, and components manufacturers such as STMicroelectronics and Infineon on new component

new gallium-based components will be arriving from 2020-2022 onwards. these components will take things to the next level, increasing battery performance by 10-20%.

16

Toyota’s Mirai has just two hydrogen fuel cells for a lighter engine

architecture (rectifiers, transistors, power inverters, etc.).

“We’re currently at the stage in which these new generation components are only just coming out of research laboratories,” said Soulas.

One of the issues occupying manufacturers and researchers is whether or not there is a credible alternative to lithium-ion technology, which has an energy density of 150-200 Wh/kg. Several avenues are emerging, the most promising of which is lithium-air technology. Lithiumair batteries are said to provide almost ten times more energy density than lithium-ion batteries, as well as being 2-3 times lighter. Electric cars fitted with this technology could see their range soar to over 600 km. “Lithium-air batteries represent a half-way house between lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells,” said Chazel, whose laboratory (LRCS) is also working on this technology. The LRCS is modeling oxygen diffusion in porous carbon electrodes, as well as migration to the other electrode, and management of humidity problems linked to the introduction of oxygen.

“It’s still very hard to tell if this technology will replace lithium-ion batteries since research on cell optimization has so far been unsuccessful,” said Yazami. It will probably be almost another ten years before lithium-air batteries are ready for mass production. ❚❚

TOyOTA ; DAViD DEWhURST PhOTOgRAPhy

Toyota took a rather wild gamble in marketing an electric car powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.

This technology’s only by-product is water. After several years’ development, Toyota designed the first prototypes on big SUV models in 2008.

“The key issue was having a compact size for when we want to incorporate it into smaller sedan cars,” explained gerald Killmann, vice-president R&D of Toyota Motor Europe. Toyota continued its research, modeling areas such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD), electrochemistry, and mechanics, generally using its ‘in-house’ code in MATLAB and Catia. This resulted in the Mirai, which has been on the market since 2015. it takes just a few minutes to fill up the Mirai with hydrogen for a range of approximately 500 km. One of the critical issues in fuel-cell cars is their hydrogen tank, which has to store 5 kg of hydrogen at

AT THE HEART OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

■ Mastering technology ■ Industrial Research ■ Dissemination across industries

■ Support for SME ■ Teaching and training ■ International cooperations

SIMULATION

INDUSTRIAL COMPANIES

TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES

HPC

BIG DATA RESEARCH & INNOVATION 17

Contacts & Information

jean-pascal.jegu@teratec.fr • Tel. +33 (0)9 70 65 02 10 2 rue de la Piquetterie - 91680 Bruyères-le-Châtel - France

www.teratec.eu

simulation

Although onera’s distributed propulsion plane (see top) is still at the planning stage, siemen’s extra 330Le and Airbus’s e-Fan are already in test flights.

AeronAutics

FOCUS ON ELECTRIC PLANES Researchers and manufacturers are working hard to drastically reduce aircraft pollution.

Hybridization seems to be the most promising and achievable solution.

by Guillaume lecompte-boinet

18

t

he aeronautics industry has long drawn attention to the figure of 3%, which is roughly the share of greenhouse gases emitted by air transport.

Although this figure may seem low, climate change means aircraft and components manufacturers have no choice but to continue their efforts to make planes more energy efficient. Great progress has been made in this field and modern Airbus A350 aircraft are 60% more energy efficient than their equivalent model in the 1970s.

But the number of planes worldwide is due to double over the next twenty years, meaning that these efforts will soon be wiped out. Unless, that is, the aeronautics industry and researchers find a winning formula.

The most obvious line of research to stop pollutant emission is to switch over to all-electric aircraft, which operate on an apparently simple principle: the propeller is driven by an electric motor powered by a battery or fuel cell. Airbus and Boeing have already worked on this concept by developing light aircraft prototypes. The most well-known model is

simulation

La référence des professionnels de l’industrie pour comprendre et agir avant les autres

“We can only model what we already know”

Jean Hermetz, assistant director of Onera’s system design and performance evaluation department (DCPS) What can simulation do for electric-propelled planes?

Simulation has a key role, which is why Onera specializes in it. We’re working on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) using our exclusive elsA tool.

Airbus and Safran are using the elsA code to model airflows. We’re also simulating flight mechanics, i.e. various combined forces and their impact on places. Finally, we’ve designed dedicated flight dynamics tools to simulate flight control laws.

What are the main challenges?

Generally speaking, CFD is well under control. Thanks in particular to our wind tunnels enabling us to check simulation results, we’ve made enormous progress. We’re constantly improving the codes.

But we’re still running into difficulties with some types of airflow modeling, which have forced us to carry out real experiments. so there’s constant toing and froing between simulation and experimentation?

It’s essential. We can only model what we already know! For things we know nothing about, experiments are required. For the Ampère distributed propulsion project, we carried out wind-tunnel tests to confirm numerical calculations, which we completed last February. ❚❚

24 h 24

Le web abonnés

La veille par email « L’Usine en régions » + L’intégralité des articles web + Les archives depuis 1994

L’hebdomadaire

Le magazine et la version digitale (iPad, Mac et PC) + Les numéros spéciaux, dont le Guide de l’ingénieur

Industrie Explorer

La base de données la plus complète sur l’industrie (en mode consultation)

Une vision unique de l’industrie en France et dans le monde

Un décryptage exclusif de la digitalisation de l’industrie et des services

Une couverture inégalée de l’actualité des usines en région

La base web de référence des 20 000 premières entreprises et sites industriels en France

ABONNEZ-VOUS !

PAYEZ EN LIGNE ET ACCÉDEZ IMMÉDIATEMENT À L’ENSEMBLE DE NOS CONTENUS SUR USINENOUVELLE.COM

BULLETIN D’ABONNEMENT À RENVOYER ACCOMPAGNÉ DE VOTRE RÈGLEMENT À : L’Usine Nouvelle - Service Abonnements - Antony Parc II

10, place du Général de Gaulle - BP 20156- 92186 Antony Cedex - Fax : +33(1) 77 92 98 15 - Email : abo@infopro-digital.com

OUI je m’abonne à la formule 12 mois de L’Usine Nouvelle pour 315 E TTC* (USI1A03)

USI1707

L’hebdomadaire et sa version digitale (iPad, Mac et PC) + Le Guide de l’ingénieur + L’accès illimité à l’ensemble des contenus du site + La base de données Industrie Explorer en mode consultation

Je préfère m’abonner à la formule 100% numérique de L’Usine Nouvelle pour 299E TTC*(WUN1A02) USI1707 JE RÈGLE PAR :

Airbus’s E-Fan (weighing 550 kg), which flew across the English Channel in 2015. In July 2016, Siemens flew its Extra 330LE aerobatic plane (weighing 1 metric ton) fitted with a prototype 260 kilowatt-electric motor. In 2016, Airbus and Siemens joined forces to carry out joint research on hybrid electric planes, aiming to achieve power in excess of 10 megawatts. “By 2030, we hope to be flying a hybrid electric plane that can carry up to 100 passengers over a distance of 1,000 km,” said Frank Anton, head of eAircraft at Siemens’s research center. This means getting a plane into the air that is 50 times heavier than the Extra 330.

One of the problems with all-electric aircraft is that lithium-ion batteries, which the E-Fan is fitted with, do not have enough density compared to kerosene. “You need a 60 kg battery to obtain the same energy density as 1 kg of kerosene,” said Jean Hermetz, assistant director of the system design and performance evaluation department at the French Aerospace Research Agency (Onera). It will therefore not be easy for electric power to supplant kerosene, the top L’usine nouveLLe i SPECiAL FEATURE MAGAZiNE N° 2 i APRiL 6 2017

Chèque bancaire à l’ordre de L’Usine Nouvelle Carte bancaire N° Expire fin Date et signature Notez les 3 derniers chiffres figurant au verso de votre carte

À réception de facture

Je recevrai une facture acquittée

Mme

M. Nom :

Prénom : Fonction : Société : Adresse : Code postal :

Ville :

Tél. : Activité : Siret : Code NAF: Email :

@

INDISPENSABLE pour ouvrir vos accès web (MAJUSCULES OBLIGATOIRES) *TVA : 2,10% - Offre France métropolitaine avec Industrie Explorer en mode consultation et hors Indices & Cotations, réservée aux nouveaux abonnés - Offre valable jusqu’au 31/08/2017- Votre abonnement comprend durant cette période la réception de 46 n° dont 3 n° doubles. Conformément aux lois Informatique et Libertés du 06/01/1978 et LCEN du 22/06/2004, vous pouvez accéder aux informations, les rectifier et vous opposer à leur transmission éventuelle en écrivant au Service Abonnements. GISI - SAS au capital de 38 628 352 € - RCS Paris 442 233 417 - N° TVA FR 29442233417 - Toute commande implique l’acceptation des CGV consultables à : http://www.infopro-digital.com/pdf/CGV_abo_Groupe.pdf.

19

simulation

Hybrid plane architecture Finally, researchers and aircraft manufacturers are also working on a third option called serial architecture. This involves turning a propeller using an electric motor that is itself powered by either a fuel cell (very likely scenario) or standard gas turbine engine. This removes the need for a battery, which is replaced by a power electronics device to optimize management of the propulsion system.

Unlike the first two options, the internal combustion engine is disconnected from the propeller. if the fuel-cell option is chosen, this third alternative will definitely be the most eco-friendly solution since planes will be truly zero emission. ❚❚

Onera’s research carried out using its in-house Elsa simulation tool, aims to extract characteristic quantities ◗ Simulating hybrid in pressure, speed, etc., fluctuations. Interpretation planes’ airflow of these fluctuations will help evaluate plane lift and drag data. Onera’s Ampère project seeks to prove that ◗ Studying the impact of electromagnetic waves excellent results can be obtained in boundary layer absorption. The boundary layer is the thin (barely a ◗ Developing lithium-air batteries few centimeters thick) air layer between air ‘stuck’ to the fuselage, circulating at the same speed as the plane, and external air at zero speed. “If we can absorb this boundary layer via the motors, we can recover unused energy and improve overall propulsive efficiency,” explained Hermetz.

Distributed Propulsion by a series of Motors Onera is testing a distributed propulsion concept as part Research in progress includes work on fuel cells, especially electron exchange with the electrolyte membrane. The Safran of its Ampère project. Thirty or so small electric motors are Group, Airbus, Onera, and the French Atomic Energy and distributed along the plane’s airfoil. The advantage of these Alternative Energies Commission are carrying out research motors is that they can be used to control the plane (which avoids any need for wings with moveable flaps) and also to bring this technology to aircraft. One project is modeling a complete system, including a fuel cell, using Catia finite improve aircraft lift at low speed. Onera carries out a great deal of numerical simulation [see interview on previous element meshing, which divides what must be modeled page] and is now specializing in it. One of Onera’s main into small elements, reducing it to a point cloud. Hydrogen tanks are also a special focus of research since hydrogen is research areas is fluid dynamics, studying airflows all along the fuselage. a flammable gas.

Another less well-known but nevertheless very strategic project is electromagnetic compatibility. By integrating more and more electric power, aircraft manufacturers will have to redesign the architecture of future planes to protect onboard “by 2030, we hope to be flying equipment (especially avionics). Onera and Safran are actively working on this issue. Onera has developed a calculation chain a hybrid electric plane that can carry up to determine electrical systems’ radiation levels and study their to 100 passengers over a distance repercussions on planes. This is absolutely essential since of 1,000 km.” aircraft manufacturers may have to shield or move critical equipment. Simulation projects are far from over. ❚❚ Frank anton, head of eAircraft at Siemens aviation fuel. Unless, that is, batteries are improved. As part of the RSE2 network, Airbus is working on lithiumair batteries with the Laboratory for Reactivity and Solids Chemistry (LRCS) in Amiens. These batteries are said to provide ten times more energy density and are also three times lighter [see page 16]. This is a key point for the aviation industry. Many challenges still need to be tackled for this technology to reach maturity. In the meantime, hybridization seems to be the compromise solution to achieve sufficient energy density.

20

siMuLAtion issues

D.R. ; jAN GREUNE / SiEMENS

Architecture of an internal combustion engine and electric motor on the same propeller shaft.

Developing electric-propelled planes will involve a hybrid phase, as in the car industry. Several types of architecture are being studied, the first of which involves turning a propeller by either a gas turbine engine or electric motor in parallel configuration. Planes are electric propelled during take-off and landing, while thermal power takes over during a flight’s cruise phase. The second type of architecture is continuous power by an internal combustion engine and electric motor on the same propeller shaft, with tasks shared similarly to parallel architecture.

Both concepts require batteries to store electrical power and release it at the right time.

Platinum Sponsors :

Gold Sponsors :

21 Silver Sponsors :

Partenaire CafĂŠ EuropĂŠen de la Recherche :

simulation

SPACE

ACCELERATING THE LAUNCH OF SATELLITES computer modeling is the core technological challenge facing electric satellites in order to reduce transfer time into orbit and enhance engine design.

by Guillaume lecompte-boinet

W

ill 100% electric satellite propulsion someday replace today’s chemical thrusters? In all likelihood, yes they will, but probably not completely. Nevertheless, each year electricpowered satellites are becoming increasingly common and may well account for more than 50% of market share in the near future. The latest development in the family is Eutelsat 172B, built by Airbus Defence and Space (ADS) based on the Eurostar E3000 EOR platform. The 3.4-ton satellite, slated to be put in geostationary orbit in April of this year, will have 13 kilowatts of embedded power and operate entirely on xenon-powered ion engines for transfer into orbit and station-keeping throughout the satellite’s useful life span.

“This is the first fully electric European satellite,” declares ADS. The advantages of electric propulsion are now well known: a 40%-50% increase in mass compared with chemical thrusters and less bulk, allowing more room for the payload. By comparison, to embed an equivalent payload, the chemical version of Eutelsat 172B would weigh 5.5-6 tons!

At only 3.5 tons, the electric platform can travel with another satellite in the Ariane 5 nosecone, thereby significantly cutting launch costs.

But there is however, one major drawback: positioning an electric satellite takes between six months with a Hall effect plasma engine and nine months with an ion engine. Though they are extremely energy efficient, electric engines have much less “push” than propellant-powered engines: about 100-150 millinewtons compared with 400 newtons for a chemical thruster, i.e. a ratio of 1 to 4,000. The space industry’s leading challenge is to shorten the time periods, particularly by means of digital simulation, as physical tests are considerably more complicated to perform in space. “To diminish the duration of orbital transfer, one can either increase engine power or 22

Two electric propulsion satellites: the Eutelsat 172B (above) and the Smart-1. The blue light under the Smart-1 is emitted by xenon atoms.

simulation

“thanks to simulation, we can save two weeks or even up to one month on orbital transfer time.”

Didier leboulch, manager of R&d and product policy at Thales Alenia space

use more engines, keeping in mind that the electric power available on satellites depends directly on the capacity of their solar panels,” explains Nicolas de Chanaud, deputy manager of the Safran Aircraft Engines electric propulsion program.

The satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space (TAS), which developed the all-electric Spacebus Neo platform, also designed a rolling solar generator system similar to window blinds.

“The generators will be slightly less efficient, but the surface is greater, and will therefore be more powerful,” explains Didier Leboulch, manager of R&D and product policy at TAS.

AiRbus defence And spAce ; esA ; d.R.

Reducing positioning time

Computer modeling is required to optimize these technological breakthroughs and work is currently under way on engines at Safran Aircraft Engines [see insert]. For satellite manufacturers, it is crucial to streamline the satellite’s path between its ejection from the launcher and its final orbit 36,000 kilometers from Earth. “Thanks to simulation, we can save two weeks or even up to one month on tHe cHallenGes orbital transfer time,” emphasizes Didier Leboulch. oF simulation These complex calculations, carried out by TAS using ◗ Reduce by a few days coding developed in-house, involves modeling all or even a few weeks the phenomena that affect the satellite during flight: the time required to gravity gradients, propulsion, the Earth’s gravity, solar position electric satellites pressure, etc. Due to their slowness, electric satellites ◗ Improve engine must contend with more random factors than their output chemical counterparts. The manufacturers and the French Space Agency (Cnes) have developed calculation codes to simulate satellite tracking. “The point is to control the trajectory using equations from celestial mechanics while taking the constraints arising from low-thrust positioning into account: limiting the amount of time spent in radiations belts, remaining visible to certain ground stations, etc.,” adds Thomas Liénart, head of the Cnes propulsion department.

Other simulation projects focus on the effects of particle discharge from the engines. “These phenomena have to be controlled, particularly to check for potential deterioration of the solar panels caused by particles,” notes Thomas Liénart.

Optimizing the trajectory is essential for another reason: the engine does not follow a linear path into orbit. It moves in spirals from its apogee to its perigee; engine thrust is quite efficient at the apogee and virtually non-existent at the perigee. It is therefore necessary to simulate the thrusts in order to save xenon and determine the best launch strategy for a given architecture. The Cnes is also conducting research in simulating satellite lifespan increases and orbit corrections, which take longer than with chemical thrusters. Ultimately, manufacturers and laboratories hope to halve the time required for positioning. ❚❚ l’uSinE nouvEllE i speciAL feATuRe MAGAZine n° 2 i ApRiL 6 2017

The PPS 5000 thruster, currently being tested by SAE, posts 5 kW of power.

safran aircraft engines establishes a chair of modeling The topic is of such critical importance for space propulsion manufacturers that a research chair has been established to study plasma thrusters and their digital simulation. The chair was officially inaugurated on January 27th by safran Aircraft engines (sAe), the plasma physics Laboratory (Lpp) at École polytechnique and cerfacs, a research center specializing in digital modeling, to continue sAe research and highlight it in Avip modeling software. designed by safran Aircraft engines, Avip is dedicated to optimizing the efficiency of the electric thruster and simulating its life cycle. “We have also developed models within the framework of a scientific interest grouping (Gis) with our historic partners: the national center of space Research (cnes), the national center for scientific Research (cnRs) including the Lpp and the national Office of Aerospace studies and Research (Onera). The chair will supplement this work,” says nicolas de chanaud, deputy

manager of sAe’s electric propulsion program.

The research agenda includes developing new design methodologies to achieve a better balance between simulation and physical testing, which is very costly. “Today we are bench testing our pps 5000 engine over a period of more than 15,000 hours, with end-of-life performances evaluated by simulation and by tests,” says nicolas de chanaud. furthermore sAe has assumed the leadership of the european cheops (consortium for Hall effect in orbit propulsion system) program. One of the consortium’s objectives is to develop simulation tools for future engines, for example, 20-kW and 500-W pps drives (the pps 5000 posts 5 kW). cheops is also seeking to make headway in the design of a “dual” plasma engine that could thrust 10% more than current machines during launch into orbit; once in orbit, it would consume 10% less energy and require less drive, thereby reducing xenon consumption. ❚❚ 23

simulation

Using simulation to make sure its ships are functioning correctly allows DCNS to avoid costly tests in real conditions.

THE QUEST FOR COMPACT SYSTEMS Ships have been fitted with electric propulsion systems for many years.

R&D is focusing on equipment dimensions and new energy sources.

By Guillaume lecompte-Boinet

24

e

lectricity and ships go back a long way. From the 19th century and throughout the 20th century, propulsion architecture in all classes of submarine and surface ship has included electricity. The ocean liner Normandie in the 1930s, the latest huge cruise ship (Harmony of the Seas) to emerge from STX France’s shipyard, and DCNS’s submarines and frigates all feature electric engines. «We’ve been fitting our submarines and surface ships with electric engines for a long time,» said Jacques Jourden, director of engineering at DCNS’s NantesIndret site (Loire-Atlantique).

Things started, and for good reason, with nuclear-propelled submarines. DCNS has been developing hybrid designs used especially for Fremm frigates since the 2000s. Ships are powered by electric engines when doing less than 15 knots, whereas gas turbines take over once they exceed this speed.

In Mistral-class projection and command ships, pods (electric propeller engines housed in nacelles) outside the hull ensure 100% electric propulsion. Nevertheless, a diesel engine and

D.R.

SHIPBUILDING

simulation

no archinaute without modeling The Archinaute, an unusual ship that converts wind power into electricity, as yet exists only on paper.

But Charles-Henri Viel, its designer, hopes to build a full-scale prototype this year. Two levels of modeling have already been completed. Viel developed algebraic equations to simulate the ship’s wind resistance, before using Heliciel software to validate wind turbine and propeller size for a given power. «The prototype will require more complex calculations,» said Viel. This involves developing a simulation tool from scratch, in this case with the National Institute of Advanced Technology of Brittany (Ensta) in Brest. ❚❚

alternator are required to power them. This system provides great maneuverability and is now widely used in commercial, exploration, and offshore vessels.

Quieter and More Compact

Electric propulsion has many benefits for the shipbuilding industry. First, this technique makes ships relatively silent, meaning that cruiseship passengers can sleep soundly and the military can avoid detection. Sound waves generated by two-stroke diesel engines can be heard miles away whereas electric propulsion, even when coupled with a diesel engine or gas turbine, is much quieter. Vibrations are of smaller magnitude and noise-dampening systems are easier to size.

Another important aspect for the shipbuilding industry is that electric propulsion saves on servicing since the engines require almost no maintenance. Furthermore, back-up heat engines, which run smoothly and at a constant speed, wear out less. «For a similar type of mission, we need less installed capacity than ships propelled entirely by heat engines,» said Jourden. But coupled thermal-electric systems are by nature very bulky as they require diesel alternators, multiple electric cabinets, converters, electric engines, etc. For this reason, DCNS has no current plans to fit ships under 5,000 tons with 100% electric propulsion, including projection and command ships, since there is not enough space.

Numerical simulation may make shipbuilders’ task easier, especially ◗ Optimizing dimensions for military ships, where space maof thermal electricity nagement is a central issue. DCNS systems uses tools such as Dymola (Dassault ◗ Testing various default Systèmes) and Simulink (in Matlab, events a generic tool) to optimize the size ◗ Testing new energy of propulsion equipment and adjust sources its control and regulation laws. «The idea is to use simulation to check the propulsion system’s overall performance,» said Jourden. This research avoids large numbers of expensive sea trials and also enables trials in degraded mode, for example, simulating equipment breakdown or a heavy swell. Shipbuilders can thus check that control and regulation laws are adjusted correctly.

At the same time, DCNS is conducting research on two topics for the future: replacing lead batteries by lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells. The idea is to improve the autonomy of standard Scorpène-class submarines, increasing how long they spend under water before resurfacing from four days to three weeks. Here too, simulation will help control propulsion-system performance and electric-equipment sizing. simulation issues

Modeling Cooling Systems

Jacques Jourden, director of engineering at DCNS’s Nantes-Indret site

DCNS is also working on superconductivity, which could theoretically make the mass and volume of standard machinery (except for cooling systems) 1.5-2 times smaller.

Nevertheless, thermal engineering remains one of the main obstacles to overcome before ships can one day be fitted with superconductor engines. Very low temperature has to be maintained via a helium cooling system. For example, this type of engine could be powered by a fuel cell. «All this involves extensive design studies and modeling of cooling system reliability and availability,» said Jourden. ❚❚

L’USINe NoUveLLe I SPECIAL FEATURE MAGAZINE N° 2 I APRIL 6 2017

25

“the idea is to use simulation to check the propulsion system’s overall performance.”

sIMULATION

MainTenance

THE DIGITAL TWIN: A PROTECTIVE BROTHER Manufacturers can now use big data to simulate the actual state of their equipment.

A key to optimizing maintenance.

By MARINE PROTAIs

A

“Until now, simulation was focused on design. The industrial internet makes it possible to use it in operation.

This shift is very recent.” Éric Bantegnie, Vice President of the Embedded Systems Business Unit at Ansys

26

Thanks to its virtual twin, the Safran Leap engine is sent to maintenance only when a fault is detected.

Safran. On the other hand, if the engine manufacturer’s teams detect an anomaly in the digital twin, they can schedule a maintenance operation to avoid a breakdown. More efficient maintenance management allows the company to cut costs.

a new business model

Contrary to other data analysis tools, the digital twin allows analysts to visualize the machinery and even look inside. It is possible to identify precisely the component that presents an anomaly instead of taking the equipment apart. “When we take back engines to make technical improvements, we can identify the family of engines we are targeting more quickly, which allows us to segment the fleet according to the specific uses of our engines,” says Céline Briquet.

Digital twins have reconfigured the playing field for simulation. Digital equipment can be subjected to all sorts of treatment that could be inflicted on its physical counterpart.

“We can replay a breakdown in the digital twin to understand its root cause,” explains Éric Bantegnie, vice president of the embedded systems business unit of the U.S. software company Ansys. “And run failure-resolution scenarios before modifying the physical object and explore possible solutions.” Industrial internet platforms like PTC’s ThingWorx and Siemens’ MindSphere combine the data produced by the various information

PAScAl GUittEt

new era for industrial maintenance has arrived.

At Safran, engineers examine their 29 Leap engines in flight, even thousands of kilometers away, on their computer screens. Each engine has a digital twin. The term was introduced by Nasa to describe a dynamic 3D digital shuttle replica based on data from equipment sensors and contextual information. In the case of an engine, the live simulation is fed by a stream of data pertaining to temperature, rotation speed and oil consumption, together with real-time information on weather, atmospheric pollution, flight route, etc. Safran stores a total of 400 megabytes of data per day for each engine in its “data lake,” which serves as an information reservoir to update the digital twins of its engines. Big data is the key to improving maintenance management.

Gone are the days of preventive maintenance based on average periods of utilization. Through the digital twin, which duplicates the actual state of equipment and analyzes its huge amount of corresponding data, managers can opt instead for predictive maintenance. This technology has become possible through the recent emergence of the industrial internet, which has increased the number of sensors and data storage platforms. “If an engine has flown under optimal conditions, we check its digital twin to be sure it has not been damaged and we can postpone the planned maintenance operation,” notes Céline Briquet, head of Leap Analytics at

sIMULATION

The Bugey plant (ain) already has a reactor behavior simulator.

seeing double at French nuclear installations

system software applications with data collected in the field, thus enabling simulations while in operation. “Until now, simulation was focused on design. This shift is very recent,” says Éric Bantegnie.

The Ansys specialist expects digital twins to come into widespread use within the next three years. “They offer advantages to all manufacturers with assets in operation, particularly those with a long lifespan that change according to use: production machines, airplanes, trains and oil rigs.”

Digital twins are particularly relevant for pump manufacturers. The pumps may be buried underground in the desert or under ice, and age at different rates THE CHALLENGE depending on the installation. The American com- ◗ To shift from preventive pany Flowserve is one of the first manufacturers to maintenance, in which have signed a contract in late 2016 with Ansys and interventions are determined by typical General Electric to develop digital twins of its pumps. equipment use, to Not only do digital twins optimize maintenance predictive, more targeted operations, they also change the company’s business maintenance, adapted to model. A manufacturer that can predict equipment each piece of equipment and its specific use. failure, find the cause and determine the best possible solution can offer a new after-sales service. “This is all part of a broader trend: manufacturers sell hours of service more than products,” points out Laurent Germain, an IoT expert at the U.S. software company PTC. L’uSine nouveLLe i SPEciAl FEAtURE MAGAZiNE N° 2 i APRil 6 2017

By 2020, EDF intends to produce an initial series of digital twins of the nuclear reactors it operates in France. the aim is to facilitate maintenance, notably by carrying out a major refitting program to extend the lifespan of nuclear installations beyond forty years. the twins will enable the energy operator to monitor the actual state of the plants and share the information with its subcontractors. the 1 million euro price tag for each digital twin will be included in the overall

cost of the refitting project, estimated at 51 billion euros over the period 2012-2025, according to Pierre Béroux, director of the group’s industrial digital transition. the oldest reactors will be the first to be digitally duplicated using laser scanners and 3D photographs.

EDF has not yet decided whether it will produce a digital twin for each of its 58 reactors or whether a single referent twin per power plant family would suffice. ❚❚

The model has definite advantages, but it also raises the question of who owns the data that feeds the digital twin and how can that data be exchanged? “The users of the equipment own the data,” declares Hadrien Szigeti, a strategic analyst at Dassault Systèmes. “But there is a legal loophole with respect to its sale. There is no practical guide to exchanging it.” For the moment, airline companies contractually agree to communicate data to Safran. “They see an advantage in doing so, because it means optimizing their maintenance operations,” says Céline Briquet. Hence more flight time. In the long run, however, users such as airline companies may come up with a way to commercialize the data. The value of a data twin is anything but virtual. ❚❚ 27

siMulATiOn

RESEARCH

nuMericAl siMulATiOn - The heArT OF irTs With eight Technological Research Institutes (IRTs), France finally has the equivalent of Germany’s Fraunhofer Institutes, only they’re better. IRTs were set up between 2012 and 2013 under the “Investment for the Future” (PIA) program and will receive 940 million euros over ten years. IRTs organize shared public-private research in eight areas: digital technology (IRT B<>Com); microbiology and infectious diseases (IRT Bioaster); factories of the future (IRT Jules Verne); materials, metallurgy and processes (IRT M2P); nanoelectronics (IRT Nanoelec); railway systems (IRT Railenium); aeronautics, space, and embedded systems (IRT Saint-Exupéry); and digital engineering of complex systems (IRT SystemX). Companies and public research laboratories pool human resources and equipment to carry out collaborative research projects, sharing the resulting intellectual property rights. And it’s an approach that works. In four years, France’s IRTs – which bring together 444 industrial and 100 academic partners, i.e. almost 1,500 people – have already achieved 106 technology transfers, registered 155 patents, initiated 715 scientific publications, set up 58 technology platforms, and taken part in 25 European research projects.

Simulation and computing occupy a major, central place in these projects: modeling new composites, material processing, multimodal transport, thermal simulation of electronic components, digital platforms for validating railway components and testing 5G security, methodology for the correct use of multiphysics coupling in aeronautical design, and pooling high-performance computing resources.

Discover the central role of numerical simulation at IRTs.

By Aurélie BArBAux And Thierry lucAs

28

SystemX designed a model for optimizing routes combining trains and buses for the SNCF.

RT SySTEmX TRACING OUT mULTImODAL mOBILITy ROUTES ◗ Set Up 31 October 2012 ◗ Current Projects 21, including 4 European projects

Completed Projects 4

◗ Platforms and Equipment 8 ◗ Patents 37 Publications 208 Technology Transfers 30 ◗ Collaborators 130, including 34 PhD students ◗ Industrial Partners 75 Academic Institution Partners 14 ◗ “Investment for the Future” Funding 130 million euros

IRT SystemX’s MIC (modeling, interoperability, communication) multimodal research project that ran for five years ended last December. Based on scenarios submitted

by Alstom, Renault and SNCF, IRT SystemX developed numerical-simulation models to optimize train/bus connections, passenger information in the event of incidents, and set up a carsharing system. These models will be used for other optimization projects, especially for stations in the Greater Paris region and cities of the future, which are quite hard to create because initial models are rare. “Industrialists

siMulATiOn

The IRT Jules Verne models the resistance of turbine blades and how the composites age in seawater.

IRT JULES VERNE OPTImIZING COmPOSITES FOR mARINE ENERGy ◗ Set Up 5 March 2012 ◗ Current Projects 53 Completed Projects 16

(including 3 European projects) ◗ Platforms and Equipment 8

◗ Patents 28 Publications 120 Technology Transfers 15 ◗ Collaborators 104 (including 20 PhD students) ◗ Industrial Partners 51 Academic Institution Partners 14 ◗ “Investment for the Future” Funding 115 million euros

have mostly simulated infrastructures and vehicles. But these systems change according to the passengers,” said Lionel Scrémin, the multimodal transport project manager seconded to IRT SystemX by Alstom. Another challenge for researchers is upscaling models and obtaining data. SNCF had to carry out two survey phases during the planning and user-communication scenarios. These surveys enabled SNCF to add passenger behavior to its train travel models and create a visualization tool for decision-makers.

In their search for models to optimize train/bus connections, researchers turned to fluid mechanics. The researchers then drew up principles for multimodal supervision and created a planning tutorial. Finally, to design a carsharing service on the Paris-Saclay technology campus, they “retrieved data from Nissan, which set up a Twizy carsharing system in Yokohama (Japan) between 2013 and 2015. Using real data, we have subsequently proved that optimization processes can result in gains,” explained Scrémin. The MIC project involved around forty people and led to 26 publications by researchers from the other participating laboratories and public institutions (Ifsttar, Inria, ENS Paris-Saclay, UTBM, Télécom SudParis, CEA, etc.). The Most (modeling and optimization of smart territories) platform has capitalized on these results.

L’USINE NOUVELLE I SPECIAL FEATURE MAGAZINE N° 2 I APRIL 6 2017

Composite materials have complex behavior, especially when in contact with seawater. To address this problem affecting offshore wind turbines and marine turbines, IRT Jules Verne, which focuses on manufacturing structures for the aeronautics, automobile, shipbuilding, and renewable marine energy industries, is developing specific simulation models.

How can we ensure the mechanical strength of blades that are exposed to the marine environment (wind turbines) or underwater (marine turbines)? How much seawater will a composite absorb and with what consequences? The material swells and increases in mass, which will impact on wind turbines of 160 meters in diameter. Mechanical properties are affected and local swelling may even damage blades. “We’re developing or adapting models to simulate how composites age in the presence of sea water. This will enable us to predict fatigue damage and the risk of blades suddenly breaking,” said Tanguy Moro, head of IRT Jules Verne’s simulation team.

An initial project with Centrale Nantes’s civil and mechanical engineering laboratory (Loire-Atlantique), the French Technical Center for Mechanical Industries (Cetim), and industrial partners (DCNS, General Electric, STX), has validated, in correlation with tests, a model that simulates water spreading through materials at microstructure level. A project with GE, the SC Méca design office and Bureau Veritas aims to extend modeling to entire structures and integrate new models into Abaqus, a commercial computing code used by industrialists. Thus enabling them to better predict the lifespan of sea-based structures, anticipate maintenance work, 29

siMulATiOn

and enhance blade design. IRT Jules Verne plans to set up a collaborative project with software vendors to transform the codes developed into marketable products. This process has already started for automobile simulation models. Still in the field of marine energy, the simulation team has also simulated a process for manufacturing marine-turbine blades in a single stage. This process consists of injecting resin into preforms containing a complex structure of fibers and reinforcements. “The aim is to use Moldex3D simulation software to work out the best injection strategy (injection points, pressure, resin temperature, etc.),” said Moro. The issue here is to reduce manufacturing tests to a minimum since each structure costs 15,000-50,000 euros.

IRT NANOELEC TRACKING DOWN CALORIES IN 3D ELECTRONIC COmPONENTS ◗ Set Up 11 April 2012 ◗ Current Projects 29 (including 10 European projects) ◗ Platforms and Equipment 5 ◗ Patents 98 Software Programs 8 Publications 171

Technology Transfers 18 Start-up 2

◗ Collaborators 185 full-time equivalent, including 16 PhD students

Nanoelec develops tools to visualize the heat dissipation of a stack of electronic components.

◗ Industrial Partners 122 Academic Institution Partners 6 ◗ “Investment for the Future” Funding 160 million euros

30

program. A new simulation toolbox has been developed with Mentor Graphics and is being used to explore this technology: adding TSVs, changing fill material, modifying the location of processor cores, which are hot points, etc. Correlated with measurements on completed systems, simulation is enabling researchers to make choices and qualify their chosen design.

The ultimate aim is to provide conditions for the system to work, with suitable cooling.

IRT RAILENIUm TOWARDS VIRTUAL RAILWAy PROTOTyPING ◗ Set Up 26 October 2012 ◗ Current Projects 34, including 6 European projects Completed

Project 1

◗ Platforms and Equipment 3 ◗ Patents 5 Publications 107 Technology Transfers 7 ◗ Collaborators 40, including 8 PhD students ◗ Industrial Partners 20 Academic Institution Partners 9 ◗ “Investment for the Future” Funding 80 million euros

Trains want to catch up with planes and cars. When it comes to digital validation of designs, the rail industry is not on a par with other means of transport. To make up for lost time, France has launched the Cervifer (virtual certification for railway vehicles and infrastructure) project. The project, run by the Agency for the Environment and Energy Management (Aeme), aims to create a simulation platform to reduce the number of physical tests and half the time taken to certify railway components. The Cervifer project has 14 partners,

D.R. ; RAILENIUM

3D integration of electronic components provides many benefits. For example, it saves space, energy, and improves performance. But there is at least one disadvantage: these components heat up. When electronic chips are stacked on top of one another, thermal dissipation may become blocked. Although thermal simulation software for electronic components exists on the market, new problems have arisen from 3D integration. For this reason, IRT Nanoelec’s 3D Integration program is developing simulation tools with Mentor Graphics, a software vendor for electronic component design. “We’re working in parallel on technology for 3D integration, circuit blocks, and design tools. We’re aiming to a have a solution ready for when an industrialist decides to take the plunge,” said Pascal Vivet, a circuit design expert at the French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission (CEA) Leti. This research institute is one of the program’s partners, together with the semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics, and two component manufacturers: SET and EVG. Chips for some memory components are already being stacked and vertically interconnected. But 3D integration has wider ambitions since it involves stacking processors, memories, sensors, microelectromechanical systems (MEMs), etc, to reduce energy consumption and improve performance.

Simulating the thermal dispersion of stacks must take into account what is happening within circuits, as well as of effects created by vertical interconnections, through-silicon vias (TSVs), and inter-chip fill polymers. “3D integration requires multiscale simulation, from nanometer to centimeter level, which is the scale of boards onto which components are placed,” said Séverine Chéramy, director of the CEA Leti’s

siMulATiOn

of canvas covers blowing off multimodal goods wagons. In particular, a deflector system is being developed to control pressure exerted on canvas covers and reduce the amount of energy used to pull convoys. This project correlates numerical simulation, wind-tunnel tests, and full-scale tests on commercial trains.

IRT SAINT-EXUPéRy mETHODOLOGy FOR LARGE-SCALE, mULTIDISCIPLINARy DESIGN ◗ Set Up 21 March 2013 ◗ Current Projects 24 ◗ Plates-formes 11 Equipment 40 (including 15 test facilities) ◗ Patents 6 Publications 63 Technology Transfers 4 ◗ Collaborators 110, including 39 PhD students ◗ Industrial Partners 81, including 43 SMEs Academic Institution

Partners 38

◗ “Investment for the Future” Funding 145 million euros

The IRT Railenium simulation platform project aims to reduce the number of tests and the time it takes to certify railway components.

including from industry (SNCF, RATP, Vossloh, Alstom, ESI, Hutchinson, Vibratec) and several research institutes (Technology University of Compiègne, etc.). IRT Railenium, one of the project partners, is interested in the rail infrastructure and rolling stock interface. “Simulation blocks exist for designing track and equipment, but a system vision was lacking,” explained Adnane Boukamel, Railenium’s scientific and training program director.

Three PhD theses at IRT Railenium have focused on modeling bogie/track interface phenomena. Together with the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks (Ifsttar), researchers have modeled stresses at the train/track contact point to determine critical train speed (when the train’s oscillations create a derailment risk). As a safety precaution, designers currently have to overestimate this risk. Another PhD thesis is studying wear and fatigue of materials at the wheel/track contact point. This research uses a numerical-simulation model that can make connections between microstructural changes in the material and its macroscopic behavior. A third PhD is modeling noise and vibrations to reduce noise pollution from train rumbling.

These tools, along with others developed in the Cervifer project, will be integrated into a simulation and certification platform for use by industrialists in this consortium. IRT Railenium is working on other projects, such as optimizing the forging process for manufacturing overhead line clamps (components linking two cables) and reducing maintenance costs by simulating damage to suspension components in bogies. IRT Railenium is also studying goods-train aerodynamics to remedy a specific freight-train problem: the risk L’USINE NOUVELLE I SPECIAL FEATURE MAGAZINE N° 2 I APRIL 6 2017

How can planes be designed faster? The MDA-MDO (multidisciplinary analysis-multidisciplinary design optimization) project at IRT Saint-Exupéry, dedicated to aeronautics, space, and embedded systems, is trying to answer this question.

For once, the answer is being sought in methodology rather than in technology. “The purpose of this project is to develop a collaborative approach among the project partners for optimizing the methodology and human interactions of plane-design processes. We want to develop capacity for multidisciplinary optimization,” said Anne Gazaix, the project manager seconded from Airbus. As she explains: “This project involves moving from traditional processes, constructed as a linked sequence of monodisciplinary steps, towards integrated processes that can simultaneously manage different disciplines such as aerodynamics, load calculation, structural design, and take account of interactions between them, even within optimization loops. This is to improve anticipation of compromises between different disciplines. We need innovative methodology to take account of these interactions.” Such is the objective of this project, which began in January 2015 and will end in November 2018. The project brings together Airbus, Cerfacs, Sogeti High Tech, Altran, Onera and Isae, with a twenty-strong team representing a dozen full-time equivalent researchers.

The chosen scenario involves installing future high-bypass ratio engines under airfoils. To design this innovative methodology, the project uses Scrum agile methods, high-fidelity simulation of multiphysics coupling, and high-performance computing. “We make the most expensive models using Cerfacs’s high-performance computer,” explained Gazaix.

The main hurdle to overcome is upscaling. “Multidisciplinary methodologies already exist, but they’re only applied to academic cases or to problems with limited variables and constraints. In our case, the issues to resolve are largescale and must integrate industrial constraints.” The project aims to establish guiding principles for creating large-scale, multidisciplinary design processes and integrate them into an associated software platform.

31

siMulATiOn

IRT BIOASTER COmPUTING AND SImULATION FOR ALL PROJECTS

would be hard to successfully complete flagship projects such as Realism (reanimation low immune status markers). This 8 million-euro project has brought together 50 researchers from IRT Bioaster, BioMérieux, ESPCI, Hospices Civils de Lyon (Lyon University Hospital), GSK, and Sanofi laboratories. The purpose of the Realism project, which runs until the end of 2018, is to combat sepsis, a serious infection during which the body’s inflammatory response leads to life threatening organ failure, an infection that affects almost 27 million people a year throughout the world.

◗ Set Up 2012 ◗ Current Projects 29 (including 1 European project) Completed

Projects 11

◗ Platforms and Equipment 7 ◗ Patents 4 Publications 38 ◗ Collaborators 117, including 2 PhD students ◗ Industrial Partners 20 Academic Institution Partners 10

IRT m2P mODELING mETAL PROCESSING TO PREDICT PROPERTIES

◗ “Investment for the Future” Funding 180 million euros

It is an understatement to say that healthcare research generates an abundance of digital data that must be modeled and analyzed to build models and find correlations. Such analysis and modeling enables researchers to discover new biomarkers, predict the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and identify action mechanisms for new antimicrobial compounds. To process data generated by its seven technology platforms, IRT Bioaster has implemented strategies combining intensive computing and numerical simulation, taking into account the severe confidentiality constraints. Strict confidentiality is a requirement for all IRT Bioaster’s members, particularly as it relates to the privacy and anonymity regarding personal health data used in many projects.

Rather than equip itself with its own computing facilities, “we decided to go into partnership with the CNRS computing center in Lyon-Villeurbanne, which provides scalable, flexible architecture with unique computing power, mass storage capacity and high-speed networks for our research projects,” said Alain Troesch, IRT Bioaster’s technology director. To fine-tune its data storage and analysis, IRT Bioaster relies on the French National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics’ computing center (CC-IN2P3, CNRS, La Doua campus). This center has access to an Openstack cloud for computing and application hosting, as well as to a Univa computing farm for intensive computing. It also provides mass storage, an Oracle and PostgreSQL database management system, and data transfer via a high-speed inter-institution network. Without this computing center, it

◗ Set Up 16 June 2013 ◗ Current Projects 15, including 1 European project ◗ Platforms and Equipment 11 ◗ Patents 2 Publications 46 Technology Transfers 8 ◗ Collaborators 54, including 17 PhD students ◗ Industrial Partners 65 Academic Institution Partners 12

To treat the profusion of health data, Bioaster relies on the IN2P3 calculation center.

32

In an ideal world for metallurgy, engineers would simply key into a computer the physical properties of the part they want to make. This would tell them the sequence of processing their chosen alloy must undergo. Although this is not yet a reality, IRT M2P’s (materials, metallurgy, processes) advanced thermochemical processing project is working towards it. A suite of simulation models has been developed. Modeling carbon or nitrogen enrichment by gas decomposition in a furnace to improve mechanical resistance is the first step in this direction. Other simulation models are enabling researchers to deduce new metallurgical phases resulting from processing, as well as calculate residual stress in materials and the fatigue life of components. “We know how to do the opposite, i.e. work back from target properties to the required processing, but only in laboratory test tubes,” said Pascal Lamesle, head of science and technology at IRT M2P. Nevertheless, industrialists involved in the TTA project, from the automobile (PSA), aeronautics (Safran, Ratier-Figeac, Airbus Helicopters), and metallurgy (Ascometal, ArcelorMittal) sectors, together with furnace manufacturers and industrial gas suppliers, can already take advantage of simulation.

The main objective is to reduce tests on manufactured parts.

Simulation is also improving our understanding of problems encountered with some types of steel and helping work out new processing methods. Before software developed at M2P is widely used by industrialists, researchers will have to ensure the various models can communicate with one another. And all this will have to be integrated into commercial computing software in collaboration with software vendors.

But this is not the only hurdle to be overcome. “The main challenge for making the transition from a laboratory setting to industrial components lies in collecting data to feed into simulation models. This will require tests and measurements,” said Lamesle. For large, complex parts, computing optimization time must also be taken into account.

ADELINE MELLIEZ / CC-IN2P3 / CNRS

◗ “Investment for the Future” Funding 50 million euros

siMulATiOn

IRT B<>COm SECURING 5G NETWORKS OF THE FUTURE ◗ Set Up November 2012 ◗ Current Projects 15, including 4 European projects

Completed Projects 6

◗ Platforms and Equipment 8 ◗ Patents 26 Publications 118 Technology Transfers 40 ◗ Collaborators 95, including 27 PhD students ◗ Industrial Partners 25 Academic Institution Partners 13 ◗ “Investment for the Future” Funding 80 million euros

5G is telecommunications’ new frontier, keeping specialized research laboratories such as IRT B<>Com fully occupied.

The challenge is to standardize both 5G infrastructures from 2018 onwards, and from 2020, the services and functions it will make possible. Not easy, as in addition to its promise to operate 1,000 times faster, “5G must support critical systems, which are very secure, as well as the internet of big things on a shared infrastructure,” explained Michel Corriou, B<>Com’s director of networks and security. Contradictory challenges, especially in terms of security, creating new problems: e.g. authenticating billions of connected objects, which, unlike with

4G, can’t be done using SIM cards. To find solutions, Europe is funding a two-year collaborative research project (5G Ensure) run by the Finnish technical research center VTT. B<>Com is one of the main project partners, together with Nokia, Thales, and Orange. “5G Ensure is aiming to identify and above all test security issues, potential architecture, and security solutions (enablers),” said Corriou. IRT B<>Com has installed a test bed to carry out the work, which simulates a standard cloud infrastructure, with all its virtualized storage and computing equipment (Openstack). It also simulates network interconnection (Wi-Fi, LTE, Sigfox, LoRa, NB IoT, etc.), with virtual network functions reproducing 5G’s specific physical features (especially low latency). This enables end-to-end integration tests to be carried out, including with new NSA-NR (nonstandalone new radio) formats for 5G. The core platform opened last August and a dozen project partners are testing their security enablers on the network there. “We’re also using it to test new continuous development methods from IT, such as DevOps. Because one of the challenges for 5G is to create new services faster, within a few days or even hours, instead of weeks or months,” said Corriou. Component manufacturers are interested in this capacity. Costing a total of 7.5 million euros, 5G Ensure will close at the end of 2017. B<>Com is already involved in two other European 5G programs. ❚❚

Designing Smart Products Have Never Been Easier Whether you’re designing cars or robots, or any mechatronic system in between, development time is tight, products are complex, and you’ve got multiple applications to consider.

Cut through the complexity with Altair’s fast, accurate, and flexible software solutions: HyperWorks offers multi-domain simulation and optimization tools fostering multidisciplinary teamwork to get to early insights and design more efficient, smarter products and processes ready for the next industrial revolution.

Learn more at altair.com/iot

L’USINE NOUVELLE I SPECIAL FEATURE MAGAZINE N° 2 I APRIL 6 2017

33

simulation

energy

DEsiGninG moRE EnERGY EFFiCiEnt suPERComPutERs To achieve exascale performance, supercomputers will have to become much more energy efficient by 2022. None of their components will be spared.

BY HuGo lERoux

a

lthough it seems unthinkable, perhaps we ought to build a nuclear power plant behind every supercomputer. Based on current energy performance, nothing less than a nuclear power plant would be needed to power a supercomputer with staggering exascale computing speed. Exaflop capacity, a billion billion operations per second, is the Holy Grail of intensive computing. Such power would open up new horizons for ultra-complex simulation. For example, simulating communication between brain neurons, simulating combustion, and simulation to search for new pharmaceutical molecules. By way of comparison, the most powerful computer currently in existence is the Chinese Sunway Taihulight supercomputer, which operates at 93 petaflops per second. This supercomputer consumes a mere 15 megawatts

(MW), racking up an energy bill of around 22 million euros a year! “To be realistic, the energy consumption of exascale supercomputers should not exceed 20 MW. Compared to the average performance of current supercomputers, they’ll have to become at least 25 times more energy efficient by 2022,” said Michel Daydé, scientific delegate for supercomputers at the French National Center for Scientific Research.

Better Component integration

To meet this challenge, manufacturers can no longer settle for piling up processors, which represent 70% of supercomputers’ energy consumption. “Neither can they base their approach on Moore’s Law any more, which has increased processor frequency regularly and quickly. This is because energy consumption increases in proportion to the square of

a Data Center With ideal Energy Efficiency

intel’s data center, managed by Shesha Krishnapura (photo) is cooled by hot air from the servers mixed with cold air and then reused.

34

Intel’s headquarters in Santa Clara (USA) include a rather unusual data center containing a supercomputer ranked 95 in the world in 2015, which Intel uses to design its processors.

But this data center really stands out for its energy efficiency.

As Shesha Krishnapura Intel IT chief technology officer proudly states, its power usage effectiveness (PUE) is 1.06.

This indicator is the ratio between the data center’s total power consumption (including air conditioning) and the energy absorbed by its IT systems. PUE ratio is the cornerstone of green IT and is above all an economic indicator. A PUE of 2 indicates

an energy bill twice as big as the ideal PUE of 1. It is therefore essential for large data centers to keep cooling costs to a minimum.

And this starts with how they are designed. Intel has opted to use only commercial products whether for racks, servers, or components, in its data centers. Narrow racks (less than 22 inches) are favored, to pack in as much hardware as possible.

The data center is divided into cold aisles (through which cold air arrives) and hot aisles (in which hot air is expelled from servers), with temperatures varying between 15°C and 32°C. Air is expelled outside by huge fans with 2-meter-long blades. Rather

than simply being extracted, hot air is mixed with cold air and then reused. Other savings are made by cooling the air with waste water discharged from nearby offices. As a result of these measures, the cooling tower is hardly used and it operated for just 39 hours during the whole of 2014. How far can energy efficiency be taken?

“We’ll reach a PUE of 1 within ten years,” confirmed Krishnapura. “We’re carrying out experiments to achieve this,” he said, adding that the ratio could even drop below 1. How? “By using heat generated by the servers to keep the offices warm”. ❚❚ Julien Bergounhoux

simulation

the frequency,” explained Daydé. For the past ten years or so, manufacturers have therefore limited processor ◗ 2% of the electricity frequency to 2-3 gigahertz, opting consumed by instead for multiple ‘cores’ in each a supercomputer is all that is used to carry out chip. This enables more tasks to be calculations. carried out in parallel, without sending energy consumption sky high. ◗ 3 gflop/W is the average energy efficiency Multicore processors, whose market (computing power is cornered by Intel, are currently compared to energy facing competition from Nvidia graconsumed) of current supercomputers. phics processing units (GPUs). GPUs hail directly from PCs and carry out ◗ 30% of a supercomputer’s overall some operations, e.g. vector calcucost (purchase and use) lus, ten times more efficiently than goes on energy. central processing units (CPUs). “It ◗ 22 million euros a year was even fashionable to say we were - the energy bill for the Chinese Sunway Taihulight heading towards supercomputers fitted entirely with GPUs. But the supercomputer. frequency size of GPUs is 3-4 times smaller, which raises latency problems for accessing memory data. The most likely scenario is to retain hybrid architecture, in which CPUs manage communication with the system and GPUs serve as accelerators, with their level of action depending on whether or not the application lends itself to acceleration,” said Jean-Pierre Panziera, chief technology director at Atos.

Another challenge for manufacturers is to more skilfully integrate components to reduce dead time in data exchange.

Since 2013, IBM has opened up the intellectual property of its Power servers via the OpenPower consortium so that various manufacturers, including Nvidia, and users can collaborate on its technology. Transfer time between CPUs and GPUs is expected to be three times faster in the new generation of Power 9 servers, which the ‘pre-exascale’ (200 petaflops per second) supercomputer delivered to the US Department of Energy (DOE) this year will have. The amazing energy frugality of ARM technology could also change everything. ARM technology is predominant in our smart phones, where autonomy is essential. This type of architecture closely integrates CPUs with vector units. As part of the European Mont-Blanc project, Atos has to present an industrial demonstrator of its Sequana supercomputer, fitted with ThunderX2 ARM processors manufactured by Cavium, this year. Another huge company, Fujitsu, has also turned to ARM technology for its Post-K exascale supercomputer, which will be delivered to Japan’s Riken research institute in 2020. a BottomlEss EnERGY Pit

ATOS ; D.R.

Cooling uses More energy than Computing

Beyond components, software will also have an important role. “We can save a lot of energy by smart design.

For example, better orchestrated computing, stopping components from running pointlessly while waiting for data, and optimizing hardware use according to application type,” said Laurent Vanel, an expert in intensive computing infrastructures at IBM. A final challenge is efficient cooling of supercomputers. Atos’s Sequana system, unveiled in 2016 by its Bull technology brand, relies on a high-perforl’uSine nouvelle I SPECIAL FEATURE MAGAZINE N° 2 I APRIL 6 2017

The Bull Sequana supercomputer unveiled by Atos intends to achieve exascale capacity via its energy efficient architecture.

This supercomputer’s ‘hot’ water-cooling system is based on ultra-thin heat exchangers in each server, which remove heat directly from the processor, memory, etc. Water circulating in a closed loop is then cooled for

free by large outside exchangers in contact with the ambient air.

This type of cooling is 30% more efficient than air-cooling. The Sequana’s energy efficiency is also characterized by multicore processors, graphics accelerators (nvidia or intel xeon Phi), memory cards, and optimized interconnections.

mance ‘hot’ water-cooling system [see box]. “1.03 watts of electricity is consumed per 1 watt of computing power,” said Panziera.“This is much more efficient than air-conditioning cooling, which can consume up to 1.5 watts!” Additional strategies, such as locating equipment in northern environments (Far North) to take advantage of free cold air, or reusing heat to keep adjacent buildings warm, can also reduce the energy balance.

In a sign of shifting technology, for the first time in November 2016 the Green 500 ranking, which lists the 500 most energy efficient supercomputers, recorded that while supercomputers’ average energy consumption is stagnating, their performance continues to improve. The Chinese Sunway Taihulight supercomputer, top of the list, consumes less energy than its Tianhe-2 predecessor (18 MW), as well as being three times more powerful! Atos’s Sequana supercomputer is ten times more energy frugal than its predecessors.

We’ll have to wait until 2022 to see if industrial roadmaps really have taken over from Moore’s Law. ❚❚ 35

SiMulatiOn

SucceSS Story

tHe COSMO COMPany DeSiGnS COMPuteR MODelS OF COMPleX SySteMS The start-up has developed a language to treat complex systems like railway networks and electric power grids.

t

he Cosmo Company has only a dozen or so clients, but they are not just any customers!

The list already includes Veolia, SNCF, EDF, Total, Alstom, RTE and ERDF. Set up in Lyon in 2010 by Michel Morvan, Éric Boix and Hugues de Bantel, this tech gem has thrived thanks to its ability to create computer models to simulate complex systems. The start-up grew out of research carried out by Michel Morvan, a former professor at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and founder of the Rhône-Alpes Complex Systems Institute.

“At the Institute, Michel Morvan developed a specific language to comprehend how pandemics spread. He observed that this data representation language could be applied to many other subjects, because complexity is everywhere, particularly in urban development and major networks,” Hugues de Bantel explains.

A decision-making support tool

Through its scientific expertise, The Cosmo Company is capable of describing mathematically the dynamic linkages between the various subcomponents of a system and simulate them over time, up to twenty-five or thirty years. “Our software programs aim to bring clarity to the most complex problems affecting industry,” declares Hugues de Bantel. The start-up promises to help business leaders make the right decisions by relying on simulation.

For example, the company has developed a software program called AIO (Asset Investment Optimization) for RTE, the subsidiary of Electricité de France that oversees the nation’s transmission system operators. The purpose of the software is to optimize investments and also infrastructure maintenance, which represents an annual budget of 850 million euros at RTE. Using AIO, the operator can take various assets into account and simulate them to detect possible domino effects. “Our systemic approach bolsters expert intuition 36

AIo (Asset Investment optimization) software is dedicated to developing models of the various assets managed by rte, France’s Network of transmission System operators including pylons, high-tension power lines and transformers as well as human resources policy.

this comprehensive approach optimizes maintenance intervention by breaking down technological silos. It could generate substantial gains for the many industrial managers when numerous infrastructure components need to be changed and decision-making becomes indispensable.

and breaks down silos within a group to enable optimal decision-making,” says Hugues de Bantel. The company’s strength lies in its ability to adapt its software to the needs of any operator managing a complex system (railway network, water or natural gas management, etc.).

Global ambitions

In 2017, the start-up hopes to double its sales and achieve revenues in the vicinity of 7 million euros, notably by expanding its international reach. It has entered into discussions with players such as National Grid in the United Kingdom, and Exelon and American Pacific in the United States. To step up its international rollout, the tech gem is betting on a network of integrators, among them IBM, EY and CGI Consulting. Its second growth priority involves selling other licensed software such as Fluid, designed to make water production and distribution networks resilient and help water companies to be more responsive in the event of a crisis.

For Alstom, the start-up has also developed a solution to optimize the energy efficiency of urban train systems. “This solution could interest nearly 250 actors across the world,” asserts Hugues de Bantel.

Over the longer term, the start-up intends to meet the needs of the financial world. “The idea would be to have a sort of index of risk on a certain number of existing financial models,” the specialist adds. Meanwhile, The Cosmo Company is nurturing its aim of becoming the world leader in decision-making management for complex systems. To reach this goal, it may finalize a second round of funding in the coming months. ❚❚

D.R.

By Juliette Raynal

AT THE HEART OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

The Teratec Campus

The CEA Very Large Computing Centre This infrastructure for very high-performance computing is open to industrial users, together with the CCRT research and technology computing centre.

Major companies have access to 1.4 PFLOPS of highly secure computing power by pooling costs, skills and foresight capabilities in the HPC field with CEA.

Industry. Leading industrial groups, SMEs and start-ups

develop business activities here, covering the entire value chain of high-performance computing, from components and systems to software and applications.

Research. Industrial research laboratories work on

developing, mastering and deploying new technologies in the HPC and big data fields.

www-hpc.cea.fr

www.teratec.eu

HPCBIGDATA HPC BIGDATA BIGDATASIMULATION ASIMULATION ASIMULATION The European Pole

Contacts & Information TERATEC • jean-pascal.jegu@teratec.fr • Tel. +33 (0)9 70 65 02 10

Campus Teratec • 2 rue de la Piquetterie - 91680 Bruyères-le-Châtel - France

37 CEA - TGCC - CCRT • christine.menache@cea.fr • Tel. +33 (0)1 69 26 62 56 TGCC • 2 rue de la Piquetterie - 91680 Bruyères-le-Châtel - France

Idaho natIonal laboratory ; ESa ; InStItut fraunhofEr ; Phay ho, ChrIS KnIght Et lInda young / argonnE natIonal laboratory ; gErman aEroSPaCE CEntEr

simulAtion

Portfolio

trompe-l’œil Simulations that show the infinitely small, the inaccessible and the invisible are sometimes deceptive, but always astonishing.

By Aurélie BArBAux And BernArd VidAl

topography of the Ares Vallis valley on Mars.

38

simulAtion

Atomic scale simulation of a nuclear reactor.

fuel filter of a car.

Effect of an X-ray on a cluster of argon atoms.

Airflow around the wings of very large aircraft. l’usinE nouVEllE I SPECIal fEaturE magaZInE n° 2 I aPrIl 6 2017

39

Virtual visit inside a nuclear reactor.

Primary ascending currents of a tornado.

40

naSa ; Idaho natIonal laboratory ; XSEdE ; InrIa / hIEPaCS ; Paul lEESon taylor / loughborough unIvErSIty ; JamStEC

simulAtion

Aerodynamics of a drone.

simulAtion

Propagation of seismic waves across the Earth. intervention simulator for the chemical industry.

Protein structure.

Visualizing execution traces of intensive computing software. l’usinE nouVEllE I SPECIal fEaturE magaZInE n° 2 I aPrIl 6 2017

41

siMuLation

Tool

oPtiMiZinG 3D PrintinG Software compensates for additive manufacturing’s unpredictability by predicting possible deformations in parts.

by Marine Protais

Netfabb predicts support-structure failure

Faced with the growing use of 3D printing in factories, Autodesk integrated a simulation feature into Netfabb in 2016. An algorithm simulates physical manufacturing phenomena and shows their repercussions on parts’ material properties and shape. The software predicts deformations and surface irregularities that may occur in parts by taking account of the machinery and material used. Users can then modify their part’s design. Netfabb can also predict failure in the support structures that parts are placed on during 3D printing.

“simulation makes 3D printing cheaper by eliminating dozens of iterations.” sylvain Legrand, “manufacturing evangelist” at Autodesk France

42

Netfabb software includes an algorithm for simulating the physical properties of parts to be printed.

The advantage of Netfabb is that, as well as simulation, it includes two other features needed for additive manufacturing: correction of computer-aided design files before printing, and topology optimization. “This means there is no break in the digital technology,” said Legrand. Nevertheless, the simulation feature is only accessible in the premium version of this software, which comes with a 5,000 euro annual subscription fee. Furthermore, it is not very sophisticated.

“This simulation feature is perhaps not as advanced as that of dedicated tools already on the market,” said Kiener.

One such tool is Comsol Multiphysics, which could be an alternative to Netfabb for expert users of simulation tools.

Although not specifically designed for 3D printing, Comsol Multiphysics can be configured for this task. In particular, it takes account of heat transfer during manufacturing.

“Heat transfer can cause residual stress, which may weaken parts,” explained Jean-Marc Petit, Comsol’s vice-president of business development. There is still room to improve these software programs to make them precise and easy to use.

They also need to adapt to additive manufacturing’s various processes, which are still changing. ❚❚

D.R.

3

D printing is no longer limited to prototyping and is now used for production. Nevertheless, there are obstacles slowing down its industrialization: cost, manufacturing speed, and discrepancies between parts’ intended geometry and printed shape. Since numerical simulation helps overcome these hurdles, 3D printing should seize hold of this technology.

Above all, numerical simulation makes 3D printing cheaper and quicker since it eliminates “dozens of iterations,” said Sylvain Legrand, “manufacturing evangelist” at Autodesk, the US vendor of Netfabb 3D-printing software. Using numerical simulation is a no-brainer since printing takes several hours whereas simulation needs just a few minutes.

“Simulation is invaluable for mass printing of parts, enabling manufacturers to optimize and test mechanical resistance before printing,” explained Quentin Kiener, CEO of 3D Prod, a company specializing in 3D printing of parts.

June, 27th 2017 TERATEC Forum

pplication Submit your a 1 2017 ! before April, 2

Ecole Polytechnique 3rd edition

REVEAL AND REWARD THE DIGITAL SIMULATION, HPC AND BIG DATA CHAMPIONS

You have a project or an innovative approach ? Send us your application file and confront yourself with the best people in the digital simulation field !

The prize list will be unveiled by the Usine Digitale team and its sponsors during a night at the heart of Teratec Forum on June, 27 2017 at Ecole Polytechnique

Discover our Award categories : J Start-up Award

J Grand prix of simulation

J Collaboration Award

J Innovation Award

J SMB Award

J Simulation personality Award

Become a sponsor of the Awards, contact Béatrice Allègre : Tel.: +33 (1) 77 92 93 62 • Email: ballegre@infopro-digital.com Organized with :

43

Find out more : http://evenements.infopro-digital.com/usine-digitale/trophees/ Ask for your application file to : trophee_simulation@infopro-digital.com

Take data analytics to the next level To meet the new data challenges of the 21st century such as personalized medicine, homeland security and real-time fraud anticipation, you need the high performance data analytics and artificial intelligence delivered by Atos Codex and the outstanding computing power of Bull Sequana supercomputers.

Bull Sequana features IntelÂŽ XeonÂŽ processors.

Intel InsideÂŽ. Accelerated Insights Outside.

Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Inside, the Intel Inside logo, Xeon, Xeon Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Contact an Atos expert at bull.com/sequana

44

Trusted partner for your Digital Journey