To Build a Better Bobsled

Supercomputers, Not Wind Tunnels

During the 2010 Winter Olympics, the three U.S. bobsled teams will be competing in the bobsleigh event with their fastest-ever four-man bobsled. In the past, designers spent hundreds of hours building bobsled mock-ups in wind tunnels, making subtle changes, and then retesting--a labor-intensive process that didn't allow precise measurements of how subtle changes could bring improvements. Today, that's no longer the case. One of the U.S. crews, Team Night Train, uses powerful IBM supercomputers along with specialized fluid dynamics software from Exa Corporation to run computerized simulations that shave valuable tenths and hundredths of a second off Night Train's times. The goal: earning Team USA's first Olympic gold medal since 1948. (Photo: TeamUSA.org)

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