Following Volvo’s recent announcement that it is using AI-driven simulation in its safety development, Ansys has revealed a breakthrough in aerodynamics simulation through its collaboration with Volvo Cars and Nvidia.
Using the combination of eight Nvidia Blackwell GPUs for the solver and CPU cores for meshing, the companies state that they have reduced total simulation run time from 24 hours to 6.5 – enabling multiple design iterations per day, facilitating more optimization studies for electric vehicles and expediting time-to-market.
To enhance the energy efficiency and driving range of the fully electric EX90, Volvo Cars and Ansys scaled Fluent to eight Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, creating an optimized end-to-end workflow where meshing took just one hour and the solver 5.5 hours. This represents a 2.5x speed increase in solve time compared to running the same simulation on cost-equivalent hardware with 2,016 CPU cores. This technology combination enables Volvo Cars to conduct multiple CFD simulations per day, enabling rapid evaluation of design variants and accelerating design optimization.
“Using Ansys simulation has the potential to help our teams obtain favorable designs and carry out virtual testing in much less time than traditional approaches allow,” said Torbjörn Virdung, technical leader CFD, Volvo Cars.
“To make our products more efficient, we must first take stock of the tools and solutions we’re using to get there. In this case, the capability of Ansys Fluent can allow us not only to perform extremely high-fidelity analyses, but the added Nvidia infrastructure supercharges the computation, so we can consider a greater number of design possibilities and reach an optimal car design faster.”
According to Ansys, this accelerated process could help Volvo Cars meet emissions, range and efficiency standards, such as Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) requirements.
Shane Emswiler, senior vice president of products at Ansys, said, “This breakthrough underscores how GPU-accelerated simulation can drive innovation and get products to market faster. The combination of high-fidelity modeling and extreme solver speed empowers customers to run more simulations and maximize the results to develop more performant products.”
“The efforts of Ansys and Volvo Cars showcase the exceptional performance and scalability of our latest Blackwell infrastructure offerings and its applicability to engineering simulation,” said Tim Costa, senior director of CAE, EDA and quantum at Nvidia.
“Together with software partners like Ansys, we are paving the way for the future of computer-aided engineering and scaling to unprecedented heights, empowering our customers to solve their most complex challenges.”