Virtual Lab in CanadaBoucherville 03 October 2001 The National Research Council of Canada's (NRC) new Virtual Processing Laboratory was officially opened by Dr. Arthur Carty, President of the NRC. These new facilities, located at the NRC's Industrial Materials Institute in Boucherville, Quebec include a state-of-the-art 3D visualization station with collaborative viewing capabilities. The investment also includes a 128 CPU Beowulf cluster (parallel processor supercomputer) using a Myrinet 2000 interconnecting system for advanced computing capabilities, as well as state-of-the-art engineering workstations and parallel platform computers.
With an investment of CA $2.1 million, these new facilities will allow the existing
team of researchers to continue their groundbreaking work developing software
tools for parts manufacturing. Many industrial sectors, including the aerospace
and the automotive industry, have benefited from the virtual technology tools
developed by this team. With the new facilities, the next generation of
automated design and optimization software as well as virtual manufacturing
visualization tools will be developed, keeping the NRC at the leading edge of
these new manufacturing technologies.
Industry partners will also benefit with the opening of these facilities with
improved access to state of the art equipment and specialists. One of the NRC's
goals is to offer companies access to the immense computing power of the
laboratory through the internet.
The Laboratory will also play an important role in education. With many
agreements with colleges and universities, the laboratory will become a training
ground for young technologists and engineers who wish to learn how to use these
new tools in their future workplaces.
Today's inauguration ceremonies were preceded by a conference entitled "Future
Trends for Efficient Moulding and Forming". This conference gathered together
world experts in virtual technologies and offered a glimpse at the future of
parts manufacturing.
The National Research Council (NRC) is the federal government's most powerful
instrument for supporting scientific research, development and innovation in
every region of Canada. NRC has Canada's best S&T knowledge and information
infrastructure, the Canada Institute for Science and Technical Information
(CISTI). NRC's labs, facilities and offices are found in most of Canada's major
centres and in over 90 locations across Canada through Industrial Research
Assistance Program (IRAP) representatives.
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