About me
My path to simulation science in general and ILSB in particular started with a diploma in Mechanical Engineering, majoring in “Manufacturing Techniques for Microsystems” at RWTH Aachen University. In 2011, I completed my PhD thesis with the topic “Free-Surface Flows in Shape Optimization of Extrusion Dies”. This was followed in the year 2016 by my habilitation on “CAD-Conforming Finite Element Methods in Engineering Design”. In October 2019, I took over the professorship for lightweight design at TU Wien.
From 2012-2015, I was a member of the GAMM-Juniors, acting as vice-spokesperson from 2013-2014.
From 2016-2020, I was co-chairperson of the ECCOMAS Young Investigator Group.
Research
My current research interests lie in the simulation and numerical design of both engineering components and manufacturing processes. From the mathematical point of view, numerical design constitutes an inverse problem. Together with my work group, I have considered applications in the area of plastics profile extrusion, injection molding, as well as high-pressure die casting. Our task is the simulation of all process steps ranging from the filling via solidification to the computation of warpage and residual stresses. These simulations serve as a basis for shape and topology optimization, but also methods of model order reduction and machine learning. The methods we employ for these applications encompass:
- free-surface flow,
- mesh-deformation methods,
- non-Newtonian material models,
- isogeometric finite element methods,
- PDE-constrained shape optimization techniques.
Supervised dissertations
- Atanas Stavrev: NURBS-Enhanced Geometry Handling for Free-Surface Flow Problems and Immersed Boundary Methods, 2017.
- Roland Siegbert: Quantification of Viscoelastic Die Swell as a Design Objective in the Numerical Design of Profile Extrusion Dies, 2018.
- Philipp Knechtges: Simulation of Viscoelastic Free-Surface Flows, 2018.
- Florian Zwicke: Inverse Shape Design in Injection Molding Based on the Finite Element Method
- Fabian Key: Advanced Full- and Reduced-Order Simulations as Digital Tools in Production Engineering
- Jan Helmig: Boundary-Conforming Finite Element Methods for Complex Rotating Domains
- Markus Frings: Numerical Process and Shape Optimization for Aluminum High-Pressure Die Casting
- Konstantin Key: Novel Numerical Methods for Solidification in Manufacturing Processes
- Felipe Gonzalez: Boundary-conforming finite-element methods applied to fused deposition modeling (https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/961972/files/961972.pdf)
- Sebastian Hube: Numerical shape optimization for dynamic mixing elements in single-screw extruders
- Daniel Wolff: Learning-based approaches for the analysis and optimization of profile extrusion dies and bioreactors (https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/973315/files/973315.pdf)