BMW Sauber F1 Team Enrolls Help of Supercomputer

In order to achieve maximum performance on the racetrack, Formula One engineers have to pay special attention to aerodynamics, trying to create as much downforce as possible while keeping air resistance low in order. The BMW Sauber F1 Team tests the aerodynamics of its racecars in two ways: physically and mathematically. The wind tunnel simulates various speeds and driving conditions, with wind speeds of up to 300 km/h, physically testing the car’s components. The second testing method is known as computational fluid dynamics (CFD), which is provided by a supercomputer named Albert2. This supercomputer is the most powerful its sector in Europe and can process 12 billion computations per second with a 2048-gigabyte memory. With the help of CFD, components and their aerodynamic attributes are evaluated before they are even produced or put to the test physically. See video on our Home Page