This June, simulation industry experts will be gathering at the International Association for the Engineering Analysis Community (NAFEMS) Americas conference. At this CAE-vendor-neutral event engineers, academics and simulation developers have the opportunity to meet and share their knowledge.
“NAFEMS is a clearing house for talking about simulation for engineering activities,” said Dawn Bardot, vice-president of the Medical Device Innovation Consortium and a NAFEMS presenter. “It allows the engineers the opportunity to talk to their peers and learn from how others industries use simulation.”
The following three reasons are examples of why industry experts such as Bardot choose to attend NAFEMS.
1. Changing Trends of the Simulation Industry
The simulation industry is constantly changing. Simulation models are getting bigger, which means more industry focus on high performance computing (HPC) and multiphysics. To that end, vendors are delivering their software in new formats with changing licensing models for the cloud and greater simulation capabilities.
“Engineering analysis and simulation tools are becoming increasingly critical to product development activities,” explained Marc Halpern, vice president of research at Gartner, who will also be speaking at NAFEMS. “NAFEMS is a great opportunity to learn about the trends, the challenges that those trends pose and the new opportunities you can be taking advantage of.”
2 Learn How the Multiphysics of Simulation is Expanding.
As simulation complexity continues to increase, engineers will need to become well-versed in multiple disciplines. A conference like NAFEMS is a great place to learn and train up on simulation multiphysics and how to use them.
“The complexity of the designs means complex physical behaviors that would be impossible to understand without CAE,” said Halpern. “However, the complexity introduces a higher risk of simulation results that can be misleading due to either faulty assumptions or modeling errors. So, we need to get smarter with CAE software. This raises the bar for the needed experience and expertise of engineers attempting to simulate complex systems.”
3. Simulation Industry Needs Validation Governance
Finally, there is one problem that every industry using simulation faces: proving to non-simulation users that their simulations are valid. To that end, Bardot is working with NAFEMS to bring validation governance to the industry.
“NAFEMS has started a series on model credibility, calling it simulation governance,” said Bardot. “I think this is a critical concept. If we as a group of simulation engineers start speaking about the governance of simulation, we can articulate that we have a process. This builds confidence that simulation is credible, and we have the means and the metrics to show that.”
What this comes down to is that if you want to learn how to convince C-level management that your simulations are up to snuff, then NAFEMS might be a good place to go.
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