Industrial simulation on parallel computers

Parallel computers have demonstrated their principle suitability for numerical simulation during the eighties and early nineties. In particular, they were able to provide a cost-effective means of achieving high performance computing (HPC) power. Even so, there was only a limited impact of this technology on industrial computing. In order to foster the take-up of this technology by industrial users, the European Commission launched a number of projects as part of the Esprit programme to parallelize commercial application programs, to demonstrate, document and disseminate the benefits of parallel architectures, and to explore the potential of parallel simulation in new application areas. Large-scale technology transfer initiatives such as Europort,1 Europort-D and Preparatory Support and Transfer Programme (PST) aimed at helping the industry in Europe to exploit the benefits of HPC, based on parallel computing, thus increasing their competitiveness. This paper gives a review on major activities and highlights their impact on industry by means of some selected examples.