Congress addresses simulation issues

The 9th NAFEMS World Congress took place in Orlando at the end of May 2003.

The 9th NAFEMS World Congress took place in Orlando at the end of May 2003.

The conference and accompanying exhibition provided an enjoyable forum for researchers, practicing engineers and software developers from around the world to meet and discuss the technical and business issues that are pertinent to the current and future use of simulation technology.

Over 200 delegates, including representatives from major corporations such as Airbus, Boeing, Ford, Lockheed-Martin, Rolls Royce, Bombardier, NASA, and Honda attended this biannual event.

In excess of 90 presentations were made, with some excellent content that initiated numerous debates and discussions - both during the formal sessions and elsewhere.

Of particular note were the invited speakers, with some exceptional presentations capturing the thoughts of several of the leading individuals who are currently working with engineering simulation software.

A number of topical themes emerged through the different sessions during the congress.

Some of these are briefly summarised below.

Nick Otter, the NAFEMS Chairman, was the first to introduce the theme of business drivers for simulation technologies during his speech to open the conference.

He recounted some of the experiences within his own organisation, Alstom.

Tom Curry of LMS International followed on from this by elaborating further on the topic during a thoroughly enjoyable keynote address.

Illustrating the points that he made with some convincing examples from the automotive industry, he spoke of some of the challenges facing industry today, including: strong global competition, customers wanting more choices, product quality as a necessity - not a differentiator, and the need to replace and refresh product lines ever more frequently.

The theme of the business benefits of simulation, having been introduced by Otter and Curry during the opening of the conference, was picked up and developed further by many of the presentations that followed.

David Hibbitt of Abaqus gave a compelling presentation where he spoke of the requirements that software and analysis procedures must fulfil in order to more fully realise the vision of "simulation based design".

He described how users will seek a suite of programs - probably from a mix of vendors - that are fully integrated with one another and communicate harmoniously.

He considered how the profile of the typical user of simulation software is changing, and spoke of the emergence of powerful customised "vertical applications", which he illustrated with some industrial applications.

Professor Mohammed Noor from NASA gave a most entertaining and fascinating insight into some of the developments in the field of simulation technologies that are in the pipeline at NASA.

He also introduced us to a new acronym by warning us of the dangers of too readily adopting CBIC - complex but irrelevant calculations - which struck a chord with many in the audience.

Another of the themes that ran consistently through the conference related to the education of those new to engineering analysis - both during their time at university and once in industry - along with the ongoing professional development of those with more experience.

Professor Manfred Zehn sparked some debate during his invited presentation by laying down a number of challenges to industry, software vendors and those in academia, setting out the need for all of us to work together to ensure that the technology is used in an appropriate manner.

One of the unique features of the NAFEMS organisation is the way in which it draws together leading individuals from academia, industry and software developers to partake in a truly independent forum.

One of several benefits of this is to promote open discussion about how the current state of the art can be most effectively translated into tomorrow's state of practice.

This issue was tackled by, amongst others, Professor Mark Cross in his invited presentation.

He spoke of the inroads that are being made in the research environment into "multiphysics" capabilities and how many software vendors are now introducing different facilities.

He warned of the difficulties that are facing the early practitioners of these techniques.

The unanimous decision of the panel of judges was to award the prize for the best paper to Nikolaj Madsen of Novo Nordisk for his presentation entitled "Drop test simulation of medical devices".

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