Simulation and Modelling 2023

Ian Symington: Chief Technical Officer, NAFEMS

Ian is the Chief Technical Officer at NAFEMS, the International Association for the Engineering Modelling, Analysis and Simulation Community. In his current role at NAFEMS he is responsible for directing the activities of eighteen international Technical Working Groups who are responsible for producing best practice guidance for the simulation community. Ian has been working in the engineering simulation field for over twenty years and has had roles with both major software vendors and industrial end users of simulation. Ian is a Chartered Engineer and an active member of the IMechE Structural Technology and Materials Group.

Christopher Davenport: EM Simulation Technical Specialist, Jaguar Land Rover

Chris Davenport currently works at Jaguar Land Rover as Technical Specialist in Electromagnetics Simulation. His role requires him to lead development of simulation models covering a broad range of frequencies – from EMC at low MHz to radar integration at 77 GHz. Chris is currently focussed on delivering EMC simulation models and guidance for the upcoming EV propulsion systems on fully electric Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles. Specifically, he has developed models for evaluating the radiated and conducted emissions from RF injections, for our traction batteries and associated battery control systems. Chris has been an advocate for simulation throughout his academic and industrial career. His PhD from the University of Sheffield focussed on the simulation and measurement of frequency selective surfaces. He has worked at BAE Systems, developing novel solutions and measurement systems for low observable platforms, at Rolls-Royce managing a project to investigate the use of wireless sensor networks as part of a complex safety critical control system, and at Jaguar Land Rover, developing and delivering simulation solutions to ensure vehicle platforms meet antenna performance metrics and EMC requirements.

Jorge Martínez López: Lead Engineer – Thermal Simulation, Williams Advanced Engineering

Laurence Marks: Independent Modelling Specialist, _

Laurence Marks built his first finite element model whilst a student at Oxford Polytechnic in the 1980s and has spent his entire career working in the field of simulation. He was founder and Managing Director of leading Abaqus reseller, and consultancy operation, SSA, until it was sold to Technia in 2018. He has written widely on all aspects of FEA, and simulation in general, as well as having published numerous academic papers on Biomechanics. Currently he’s a freelance consultant focussing on training and methods development, and a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. He still writes for Develop3D and Benchmark.

Rob Turpin: Head of Sector (Healthcare), British Standards Institution

Rob Turpin joined the British Standards Institution (BSI) in 2001 and is currently Head of Sector for Healthcare Standards. He leads on the strategic activities for development and publishing of standards in the medical devices, life sciences and wellbeing domains. Recent work includes initiatives to support the emergence of computer modelling in clinical trials. Previously, Rob has been involved in managing national and international standards development programmes across a variety of subject sectors. He has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Teesside, UK.

Phanikrishna Thota: Specialist - Landing Gear Technical Domain, Airbus Group

Peter Giddings: Chief Engineer – Energy, National Composites Centre

Dr Peter Giddings CEng MiMechE, is the Chief Engineer for Energy at the National Composites Centre (NCC). In his current role at the NCC, Peter defines technical strategy for the use of composite and non-metallics in enabling Net-Zero energy generation and distribution. He combines his 15 years of R&D experience with knowledge and collaborators across manufacturers, operators and regulators from across the sector to identify and enable the most impactful applications of new technologies in offshore wind, hydrogen, oil & gas and advanced nuclear systems. Prior to this role he led a major programme to design and commission the world leading R&D facilities at the NCC. His earlier research underpins innovative products in aerospace, motorsport, energy and consumer goods applications with the United Technology Corporation and a range of consultancy clients.

Prof Alejandro F Frangi: Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies, University of Leeds

Maira Bana: CFD Manager, Red Engineering

Maira is currently leading RED Engineering Design's global CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) Team, after a decade working in the data centre industry. Following her degree in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London, she spent her early career with Future Facilities as a Consultant Engineer, delivering CFD projects and playing an integral role in shaping the industry-leading 6SigmaDCX software package. She became Chartered with the IMechE in 2017, and joined the Construction & Building Services Division (CBSD) to bring a voice to the data centre industry. She has been co-Chairing the division since 2021,and sits on Council and Technical Strategy Board. Maira is passionate about raising awareness on the power of diverse teams and inclusive environments, and is a trustee of a Charity that aims encourage girls into Engineering and highlight the roles and achievements of women in the sector.

Nigel Pready: Group Leader – Structural Technology, Frazer-Nash Consultancy

Nigel has been working in structural simulation for over 20 years. He has worked for a simulation software provider, an aerospace OEM and currently works as a Group Leader at Frazer-Nash Consultancy. Over those 20 years he has worked on a wide range of problems across the project lifecycle in industries including defence, aerospace, nuclear power and renewables. In recent years he has been involved in combining data science approaches, including probabilistic methods and machine learning, alongside structural simulation techniques, to help customers gain insight into complex problems.

David Panni: Chief Engineer – Structures and Simulation, JCB

Dr David Panni is Chief Engineer for Structures and Simulation at JCB Excavators Since 2003he has been responsible for JCB structures and structural integrity across the globe, managing and leading a core team of Stress/Structures Engineers who support the global business with technical expertise. In this time he has established a robust New Product Introduction process for structures, supported the introduction of numerous products into the market and established a Structures Simulation and Testing group in Pune, India. He has also championed the drive for increased simulation-driven design and validation to support product excellence.

Mark Price: Professor of Aeronautics, High Value Design Lead, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Queen’s University Belfast

Mark Price is Professor of Aeronautics at Queen’s University Belfast. A Chartered Engineer he worked in the Aerospace and CAE Software industries before turning to academia eventually serving as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Engineering and Physical Sciences from 2015-20. He is a member of the Zero Emissions Flight working group of the Jet Zero Council, a Board member of the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) and a Trustee of the James Kane Foundation. He was Chair of the EPSRC Manufacturing the Future Strategic Advisory Team (2020-21). He now leads the EPSRC funded Re-Imagining Engineering Design Programme Grant exploring bio-inspired innovations in engineering design.

Prof Alejandro  F Frangi: Royal Academy of Engineering, University of Leeds

Prof Alejandro (Alex) Frangi graduated in Telecommunications Engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia (Barcelona, 1996) and pursued his PhD in Medicine at the Image Sciences Institute of the University Medical Centre Utrecht University (Utrecht, 2001) on model-based cardiovascular image analysis. He was visiting researcher at Philips Medical Systems BV, The Netherlands (1998) and Imperial College in London, UK (2000). Professor Frangi is Diamond Jubilee Chair Computational Medicine and RAEng Chair in Emerging Technologies at the University of Leeds. He holds appointments in the Schools of Computing and Medicine and leads the Centre for Computational Imaging & Simulation Technologies in Biomedicine. He has published >285 journal papers, served in multiple conferences, most notably as General Chair of FIMH’05, ISBI’12, MICCAI’18 and IPMI’23. AFF has served on several editorial boards including IEEE Trans on Med Imag, Med Image Anal and SIAM Imag Sciences. Co-Editor-in-Chief of IOP Progr Biomed Engineering. Served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research (2014-2018) and. PI or Scientific Coordinator for 25+ national and international projects funded by the EC, NIH, EPSRC, BBSRC, RAEng, MRC, and WT awarded over £50m to date. Prof Frangi conducts research in computational medical imaging and computational image-based medicine. He is interested in developing fundamental image analysis and modelling methods, medical image registration and reconstruction, statistical shape modelling, and machine-learning and deep-learning approaches to the previous goals. The broad goals of his research program are: (i) develop intelligent systems to deal with the analysis of large-scale complex and multimodal data where imaging plays a central role, (ii) develop new approaches to integrate mechanistic and phenomenological imaging-linked models. He is also interested in new approaches to incorporate models and priors into data-driven approaches to retain the benefits from its ability to deal with complex data while controlling their expressivity and making them practical in problems constrained by data availability.

Lee Margetts: United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Chair for Digital Engineering in Fusion Energy, University of Manchester

Lee started his career at Surrey County Council in the Engineering Consultancy Division, where he worked from 1994-97. After a break for postgraduate study, he has been working at the University of Manchester since 2001. He is currently Programme Director for Mechanical Engineering and leads the Digital Engineering for Fusion Energy research group. He has a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Manchester and an MBA in International Engineering Business Management from the Alliance Manchester Business School. His research interests are in extreme scale engineering simulation, data management and AI. These three pillars are required to deliver a vision for digital twins in the industrial metaverse that will support the design, construction and operation of a fusion power plant. Lee has supported industry in Europe as former Chair of the PRACE Industrial Advisory Committee. He currently Chairs the NAFEMS High Performance Technical Working Group.

Michelle Hill: Head of Materials Testing, AMCT, HBK UK

Philip Ind: Principle Technical Authority, AWE

Ubaid Qadri: Team Leader – Multi-Fidelity Design and Twinning, Science and Technology Facilities Council

Dr Ubaid Ali Qadri has a background in computational modelling for fluid mechanics and leads the Multi-Fidelity Design and Twinning team at the Hartree Centre, STFC. He has more than 10 years experience in developing and using adjoint techniques to understand sensitivities and optimal design parameters in multi-physics applications. He has worked across academia and industry on projects related to the aerospace and automotive sectors. At the Hartree Centre, Ubaid leads efforts in the application of novel simulation and design methodologies and high performance computing to industrial challenges.

Padmeya Prashant Indurkar: MODSIM Industry Process Consultant (Euronorth), Dassault Systèmes

Dr. Padmeya P. Indurkar is currently working as a MODSIM Industry Consultant at Dassault Systèmes. Padmeya’s current role is aimed at transforming clients’ product development workflows by enabling simulation-driven design through advanced capabilities such as generative design, parametric and topology optimisation, additive manufacturing, and data-driven surrogate modelling for a range of industries, from automotive to aerospace, and from energy to life sciences. Prior to this, Padmeya worked as a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge on fracture mechanics and developed data-driven deep learning techniques for lattice architected materials. Padmeya holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the National University of Singapore (NUS) where he developed computational methods for modelling plasticity and fracture in lightweight metallic alloys using non-linear optimization algorithms coupled with ABAQUS. Research conducted by Padmeya has been published in leading computational mechanics journals and conferences worldwide.

Adam Sobey: Programme Director; Data-Centric Engineering, The Alan Turing Institute

Adam Sobey is Programme Director for Data-Centric Engineering at The Alan Turing Institute, the national AI Institute, Professor of Data-Centric Engineering at the University of Southampton and Non-Executive Director of Theyr Ltd. His current research topics are Evolutionary Computation, Reinforcement Learning in Continuous Environments and Data-Centric Engineering. These have been applied in a range of industrial applications with a focus on reducing emissions. In 2015 he was awarded the Royal Institution of Naval Architect’s Jeom Paik Award for his investigations into using soft computing approaches to improve the reliability of ship structures.

Domenic DiFrancesco: Turing Research Fellow; Data Centric Engineering, The Alan Turing Institute

Domenic is a chartered mechanical engineer who has previously worked for consultancies in the energy industry. He completed his PhD in 2021, and his thesis investigated the application of partial pooling (hierarchical and gaussian process) Bayesian models in value of information analysis, with application to structural integrity management. Since joining the Alan Turing Institute, he has continued to work on various methods in statistical decision analysis, as well as industrial projects including guidance for engineers on the use of computational statistics, and verification of digital twins.

Roberto Alegre Usach: Modelling Specialist - Fuel Systems, Airbus Operations Ltd

Roberto is a Fuel Systems Modelling Specialist working for Airbus Operations Ltd since 2017. He graduated from Cranfield University and the Polytechnic University of Valencia with a Master’s Degree in Thermal Power and a Bachelor's Degree in Aerospace Engineering. Having completed the Airbus Graduate Programme in 2019, he has extensive transnational experience across different departments of the company. Currently, his work focuses on developing the next generation of fuel systems, in particular, based on liquid hydrogen as a fuel. In his role, he studies the performance, operation and safety of a liquid hydrogen fuel system using a variety of modelling techniques, from simple 0D sizing scripts to complex multi-phase 3D CFD simulations. He also mentors new Airbus engineers, primarily in the Airbus India Engineering Centre, and develops new methods and processes for a seamless integration of modelling and simulation into the overall Validation, Verification & Accreditation process.

Tim Dodwell: Founder and CTO, digiLab

Tim is Co-Founder and CTO of digiLab, an award-winning deep tech company building market leading AI products to enable the transition to net zero across Energy, Engineering, Aerospace and Water sectors. He is an internationally recognised leader in Data-Centric Engineering, Uncertainty Quantification and Probabilistic Machine Learning, passionate about harnessing the power of Digital Twin technology. His research portfolio, totalling over £26M, showcases extensive collaboration with industry partners at the forefront of safety critical engineering. He holds a personal chair in Machine Learning at the University of Exeter and Alan Turing Institute supported by a prestigious 5 -year Turing AI Fellowship funded by UKRI. Through this fellowship he holds visiting positions with leading groups at Heidelberg and MIT. Tim is an evangelist for technology and is fervently guiding businesses and individuals into the exciting realm of Machine Learning. Through new products at digiLab like digiLab Academy and twinLab, he is setting new benchmarks in AI education and digital twin solutions.

Andrew Curtis: Simulation Engineer, Polestar

Andrew Curtis is a Simulation Engineer at Polestar. He specialises in modelling thermal and vehicle systems and is currently leading the modelling of vehicle thermal architecture for the next generation of Polestar vehicles. Before Polestar, Andrew worked at MAHLE Powertrain where he developed models of hybrid and electric vehicles and designed internal combustion engine systems. Andrew holds an MEng (Hons) in Mechanical with Automotive Engineering from Bath University and is a Chartered Engineer, CEng MIMecheE, through the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.

Omer Ozkirimli: Senior Research Engineer of Modelling and Simulation, The Manufacturing Research Centre

Omer Ozkirimli is currently a Senior Research Engineer in Modelling and Simulation at the Manufacturing Technology Centre. With a background and subject matter expertise in manufacturing process physics modelling and dynamics control, he currently focuses on physics-based modelling for product design and manufacturing processes and develops digital twin simulation models across different industries. He is also co-leading the high-value design related digital engineering activities encompassing certification by analysis, agile design, and generative design areas. Before joining MTC, Omer worked at the Space Park Leicester as the Business Manager of the STAR (Space Technology Applications from Research) Accelerator ERDF programme, with responsibility for establishing the engineering centre and business development for SME digital transformation. Previously, he was a Technical Fellow and Head of the Machining Dynamics team at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC of Sheffield University), focusing on machining R&D for process improvement, control, and optimisation. Omer holds an MSc in Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering and a BSc in Mechatronics Engineering from Sabanci University, Turkey.

Willem Denmark: Business Unit Lead for Modelling and Simulation, The Manufacturing Technology Centre

Willem Denmark is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer with the Institute of Mechanical Engineers with an academic background from Brunel University, London, where he achieved a First-Class Honours Degree in Master of Mechanical Engineering. Willem joined the MTC in 2013 as a Modelling and Simulation expert. His experience in Finite Element Modelling of thermal-mechanical simulations covers an extensive and innovative range of manufacturing applications, from welding to additive manufacturing. He has applied research within an expanse of the Technology Readiness Levels; from the implementation of novel modelling methodologies supporting peer-reviewed journal submissions, to the development of applications and tools, to enable dissemination of modelling and simulation capabilities to industrial clients. Currently, he heads the Modelling and Simulation Department at the MTC that comprises multi-scale modelling capabilities, from Macro to Factory to Enterprise scales. The department works in the remit of applying complex models and simulations to a wide range of industrial manufacturing challenges to support business decisions across a diverse sector range, such as creating digital twins for advanced planning, predictive scheduling and maintenance models, sustainability assessments, virtually testing and generating digital validation and certification of products and processes within the Aerospace, Defence, Automotive, Construction, Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and Food and Drink industries.

Marc Funnel: Head of Digital Engineering, National Composite Centre

Abdulmajid Abdulmajid: Expert, Simuserv

I am a CST Engineer at SIMUSERV, specializing in providing technical support to CST users. I earned my Ph.D. in high-gain Dielectric Resonator Antennas (DRAs) from the University of Sheffield in 2020. My career journey has been diverse, reflecting my passion for electromagnetic research and engineering. In 2021, I worked as a Near-field Probe Designer at YIC Technology, contributing to cutting-edge innovations. Prior to this, I served as a dedicated lecturer at Bani Waleed University in Libya from 2012 to 2014, where I shared my knowledge in antennas and electromagnetics. My career began as an electronic maintenance engineer at the General Electrical Company of Libya (GECOL), where I gained valuable experience from 2006 to 2012.

Matthew Kaufeler: Principle Product Engineer, Cadence Design Systems

Matthew is a member of the product management team for Cadence’s DataCenter Design Software™ and DataCenter Insight Platform™ (formerly Future Facilities 6SigmaDCX product line). After studying for a degree in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London, he spent six years working in technical sales, product development and R&D at a cooling hardware company with a focus on data centre cooling. He joined Future Facilities (now Cadence) in 2019 as a consultant engineer, modelling and analysing the performance of data centres in their operational and design stages, supporting the efforts of software users and contributing to product testing and feature design.

Andrew Halfpenney: Director of Technology, AMCT, , HBK UK

Dr. Halfpenny has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from University College London (UCL) and a master’s in civil and Structural Engineering. With over 25 years of experience in structural dynamics, vibration, fatigue, and fracture, he has introduced many new technologies to the industry including: FE-based vibration fatigue analysis, crack growth simulation and accelerated vibration testing. He developed the new vibration standard for qualifying UK military helicopters, and has written publications on Fatigue, Digital Signal Processing and Structural Health Monitoring. He is a visiting lecturer on structural dynamics with The University of Sheffield.

Dominik Hofmann: Engineer, FEMFAT Sales & Support, Magna Powertrain

Started working in Engineering Center Steyr (ECS) - MAGNA Powertrain (located in Austria close to Linz) in Dec. 2003 in the Structural analysis department as a “FE analyse engineer” until the end of 2012. After using FEMFAT software for 9 years actively in projects he joined the FEMFAT Sales & Support at the beginning of 2013 where he works since then. He is interested in doing sports and (restoring) cars. With a passion for motorsports, he spends his time in the workshop and behind the wheel.

Edward Carman: Lead application Engineer, Ansys

Edward Carman is a Lead Application Engineer for Ansys’ digital twin modelling solutions. His main areas of interest are in the deployment of simulation models for connection to data platforms, reduced order modelling and fluid flow network modelling. His background also includes extensive experience in finite element structural, thermal and electromagnetic modelling, as well as computational fluid dynamics.