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Royal Military College of Canada Speeds Advanced Aircraft Design Research with SiCortex

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 05/26/09

Researchers and faculty at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) in Kingston, Ontario are tackling the challenge of how to reduce fuel consumption by aviation and shipping industries with the use of a new high-productivity computing system from SiCortex. The researchers are seeking ways to design more aerodynamic and efficient air vehicles. To achieve this, they're employing concepts like non-planar wing design and other surface configurations to positively impact aerodynamics, structural design, weight, and performance.

The RMC is also working in partnership with the National Defence and Canadian Forces to conduct research to develop aircraft that better sustain damage during lengthy combat missions.

"As a focused institution, we don't have the resources to support a massive computing infrastructure, so it was critical to find a system that met our space and energy-efficiency requirements without sacrificing performance," said Ruben Perez, assistant professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at RMC. "The SiCortex system puts the power of ... technology right in our lab at a fraction of the ownership costs of other systems. By using the SiCortex machine, we can develop applications and complete calculations overnight that may have once taken two weeks, radically reducing the time we need to advance our research."

RMC's multidisciplinary research team is using the SiCortex system to develop design algorithms using the Python programming language. Ultimately, usage will expand to support other kinds of projects in the school's aeronautical and mechanical engineering programs.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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