23rd CADFEM Users' Meeting

Distinguished names of the FEM-world, 200 technical lectures dealing with a range of topics, lively discussions and a very special venue characterized this year's CADFEM and ANSYS Germany Users' Meetings.

The host analysis experts from Grafing and Otterfing near Munich chose a very special place to celebrate their 20th (CADFEM) and 15th (ANSYS Germany) anniversaries respectively.

From November 9 to 11 2005, the former German Federal Parliament in Bonn, including the old waterworks and the parliamentary party and committee rooms, created an exclusive backdrop for the . 580 participants from industry and research, as well as 100 staff members from the organizing companies themselves were provided with an extensive range of technical information and excellent opportunities for interesting talks and discussions centered on Computer Aided Engineering.

The program of lectures and workshops dealing with a range of computer simulation application areas was complemented by a trade fair with 34 participating companies. The historical venue itself, as well as the entertaining conference socials, crowned by an evening event in Petersberg Guest House, provided both distraction from the technical and scientific conference program and rounded off the event.

Eminent keynotes

Again this year, among the highlights of the event were the keynote speakers of the plenary sessions which took place at the beginning and end of the conference. Prof. Dr. Erwin Stein and Dr. John Swanson, two scientists who have paved the way for today's industrial use of FEM technology, were invited. Prof. Stein, whose research furthered the numerical analysis of physical processes, talked of Leibnitz' work and his legendary calculators. Dr. Swanson, the "father" of ANSYS, on the other hand, provided an entertaining insight into the genesis of analysis software.

Members of the manufacturing sector, such as ANSYS' CEO Jim Cashman, Brian Lowe of HP, and Ken Welch of Moldflow presented their views on the medium-term development of Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) in general, and that of their respective companies in particular. Dr. Miriam Sick of VA Tech, Karel Samec, Paul-Scherrer-Institut, Prof. Stefani Bandini, University of Milan and Jim Bungener, Team Alinghi reported the results they had achieved using CAE. Frank Vogel of inuTech GmbH demonstrated how extremely complex, highly specific simulation challenges can be met using the "Diffpack" package as a supplementary tool for standard analysis programs.

Almost 200 lectures dealing with 30 topics

In addition to the plenary sessions, participants were offered 10 parallel lecture blocks and workshops covering the following topics: statics, dynamics, heat transfer, crash, metal forming, composites, fatigue, welding, casting, optimization, civil engineering, electromagnetics, multiphysics, MEMS, electrical drives, FEM and multi body dynamics, computational fluid dynamics, aero dynamics, fluid-structure-interaction and others. ANSYS, including CFX and ICEM CFD, LS-DYNA, Moldflow, and FTI user meetings, as well as a Virtual Paint Shop users' meeting were the main events on the last day of the congress.

Sponsors and a large technical exhibition 

It was only possible to organize this conference with the cooperation of the CAE-related sponsors, and the support of hard- and software manufacturers and service providers which presented their products during the accompanying exhibition. The following sponsors from the sector of hard- and software supported this year's conference: ANSYS Inc., Hewlett-Packard, Intel, SGI, Moldflow, FTI, LSTC, CoCreate and science + computing.

Evening at the Petersberg Guest House

The traditional evening event took place on the second day of the congress. Just as the former hosts of the "Bundestag", the conference organizers invited participants to the former Guest House of the Federal Government on Petersberg mountain in the nearby town of Königswinter. Besides the breathtaking view of the Rhine Valley and Bonn by night and a delicious buffet dinner, visitors were entertained by Bonn's most important "son", Ludwig van Beethoven, in the shape of Munich music cabaret artist Jörg Maurer. Had they not already done so, this was when all those present completely forgot about computing and simulation and indulged in the evening's program, crowned by Jörg Maurer's performance of classical music, full of pleasant surprises.

Another highlight was the traditional awards ceremony. This year, awards were presented to Christian Rümpler (Fraunhofer SCAI; Best Paper Award), Martin Oppliger (Zürcher Hochschule Winterthur - CADFEM grant for diploma thesis), and Malte Janduda (CADFEM award student research papers).