CDFAM Computational Design Symposium

Duann Scott

CDFAM Computational Design Symposium Presentation Recordings www.designforam.com

  1. 11 พ.ค.

    Design For Real World Engineering: Integrating Uncertainty Into Product Assessment - Greg Grigoriadis - Metisec

    Deterministic engineering analysis assigns fixed values to loading conditions, geometry, and material properties. The approach is tractable, but it forces a choice between conservative overdesign and exposure to failure modes that fall outside assumed limits. Neither outcome is satisfying. Greg Grigoriadis of Metisec describes a design toolkit that replaces fixed inputs with statistical distributions and runs Monte Carlo simulations across the resulting parameter space. The output is a probabilistic picture of performance: failure probabilities, sensitivity rankings, and the specific conditions that actually drive risk. A sensor mounting bracket for a smart wearable serves as the test case. Traditional optimization cut bracket weight by 30%. Probabilistic analysis revealed the design had been tuned to an improbable drop event and still carried unresolved thermal failure risk. Incorporating that information allowed the team to re-optimize and achieve a 50% weight reduction at a demonstrably low failure probability. Greg is an engineering consultant specializing in consumer electronics, digital twin technologies, and advanced simulation workflows. His practice combines physics-based modeling with data-driven methods across finite element analysis, predictive maintenance, and automated computation pipelines. Presented at CDFAM Barcelona 2026. Learn more at cdfam.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.designforam.com

    17 นาที
  2. 4 พ.ค.

    SEAT | Digitizing Body-in-White Development with MAS Synera

    Body-in-White development sits at the intersection of structural performance, manufacturability, and schedule pressure — and traditional workflows are increasingly strained by the pace of platform proliferation and regulatory demands. This episode examines how SEAT/CUPRA is modernizing BIW development through Synera’s Multi-Agent System (MAS), connecting CAD, CAE, and manufacturing processes within a unified automation framework to accelerate iteration and improve engineering traceability. Tilman Steininger, Customer Success Manager for Agentic Engineering at Synera, and Juan De Dios Escribano Felguera, Team Lead for Body-in-White and Corrosion Development at SEAT/CUPRA, present their collaborative work digitizing structural development workflows across the full BIW development cycle. Recorded at CDFAM Barcelona 2026. About CDFAM The CDFAM Computational Design Symposium is a global conference series bringing together researchers, engineers, and software developers working at the intersection of computational design, AI and machine learning for engineering and architecture. The program spans computational geometry, generative design, topology optimization, simulation-driven workflows, and advanced manufacturing across scales from architected materials to architectural systems. CDFAM events are held worldwide. cdfam.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.designforam.com

    20 นาที
  3. 27 เม.ย.

    SubSimX: Interactive Subdivision-to-FEM for Computational Design

    The gap between geometric modeling and structural simulation has always been a workflow problem as much as a technical one. Every time a designer changes a shape, the mesh breaks, boundary conditions need redefining, and the simulation has to be rerun from scratch. At the scale of iterative or generative design workflows, that overhead compounds quickly. In this episode recorded at CDFAM Barcelona 2026, Johannes Mueller-Roemer presents SubSimX, a pipeline that addresses this by treating subdivision surfaces as a native simulation medium rather than a preprocessing step. Designers work on a standard Catmull-Clark control mesh. Meshing and boundary condition setup happen once. From that point, geometry edits propagate to the existing analysis mesh in seconds, structural feedback is continuous, and the design session never has to stop for remeshing. The technical core is a precomputed mapping between the control mesh and the volumetric interior, combined with a local mesh-repair step that maintains element quality through large deformations without changing mesh topology. Coupled with RISTRA, Fraunhofer’s GPU-accelerated FEM solver, the system delivers real-time or near real-time structural feedback. Johannes demonstrates how this enables dense design sweeps, topology optimization followed by subdivision refinement, and AI-in-the-loop exploration within practical industrial workflows. Johannes Mueller-Roemer is Deputy Head of Interactive Engineering Technologies at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD. He received his PhD from TU Darmstadt in 2019, where his dissertation introduced GPU data structures for tightly coupled modeling and simulation — the foundation SubSimX is built on. Recorded at CDFAM Barcelona 2026 — https://cdfam.com/barcelona-2026/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.designforam.com

    17 นาที
  4. 22 เม.ย.

    Unlocking Large-Scale Structural Synthesis: High-Performance GPU Topology Optimization For Architectural And Civil Engineering Applications

    Topology optimization has long been constrained by the computational cost of working at meaningful scale. For architectural and civil engineering applications — where domains span tens of meters and element counts run into the millions — that constraint has made high-fidelity structural synthesis largely impractical on standard hardware. In this episode recorded at CDFAM Barcelona 2026, Raul C. Llamas-Sandin presents a GPU-accelerated solver that addresses this directly, reducing solve times for large-scale problems to minutes on a workstation. He covers the key technical features that make it relevant for the built environment: asymmetric tension-compression stress constraints, thermoelastic analysis, and geometric constraint enforcement for fixed architectural elements and fenestration. Applications demonstrated include bridge design and high-rise structural cores at spans up to 80 meters, as well as free-form architectural geometries exported as watertight STL files ready for digital fabrication. The solver’s modular configuration approach decouples problem definition from the numerical backend, making it adaptable across project types without reengineering the workflow. Raul is a Future Projects Engineer at Airbus Operations SL and Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Universidad Europea de Madrid, with over two decades of experience in advanced aircraft design. He holds an MSc in Aerospace Vehicle Design from Cranfield University and 14 patents spanning aerodynamic devices and plasma actuation. Recorded at CDFAM Barcelona 2026 — https://cdfam.com/barcelona-2026/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.designforam.com

    25 นาที
  5. 20 เม.ย.

    Functional AI For 3D Design Automation — From Path Finding To Generative Modeling For Building Construction

    Most 3D generative AI has been built to produce things that look right. Hao (Richard) Zhang argues that for the built environment, that is the wrong objective. Buildings must function — and that means AI systems need to reason about spatial relationships, load paths, equipment routing, and regulatory constraints, not just geometry. In this episode recorded at CDFAM Barcelona 2026, Richard introduces Functional AI as a framework for 3D design automation and walks through Augmenta’s work applying it to real building projects. The technical scope covers agentic AI for MEP path finding, generative modeling of complex structural and mechanical layouts, and progress toward a foundation model for building data. He also discusses what makes non-residential construction — commercial, medical, institutional, and mission critical — a particularly hard problem for AI systems to crack. The conversation closes on a concrete milestone: two elementary schools in Michigan where the electrical system was fully modeled and delivered using AI-powered generative design, a first for the industry. Hao (Richard) Zhang is VP of AI and R&D at Augmenta and a Professor in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a member of the ACM SIGGRAPH Academy, and served as Technical Papers Chair for SIGGRAPH 2025. Recorded at CDFAM Barcelona 2026 — https://cdfam.com/barcelona-2026/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.designforam.com

    22 นาที
  6. 6 ก.พ.

    Crease, Fold, Transform. - Alfonso Parra Rubio - MIT

    Recorded at CDFAM Computational Design Symposium, NYC, October 29-30, 2025https://cdfam.com/nyc-2025/ Organization:MITPresenter:Alfonso Parra RubioCrease, Fold, Transform. Presentation AbstractFolding is a fundamental process found throughout nature on multiple scales. Rather than altering the material itself, folding transforms its shape, offering a powerful means of engineering without compromising integrity.This presentation explores, from an engineering and design perspective, the unique potential of folding and discrete assembly as a design and manufacturing tool across multiple scales in engineering.From millimeter-scale bulk cellular materials to meter-scale structural corrugations and actuated robotic systems, and ultimately to architectural shell structures spanning tens of meters, folding enables the creation of high-performance, architected materials.Speaker BioAlfonso Parra Rubio is a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working at the Center for Bits and Atoms led by Neil Gershenfeld. His research explores how folding and discrete assembly can be combined to design and manufacture architected materials across multiple scales: from bulk cellular materials (millimeters to centimeters), to structural corrugations and actuated systems (centimeters to meters), and up to architectural-scale shell structures (meters to decameters). His work fundamentally explores how materials and structures are designed, engineered, manufactured, and assembled. In addition to his academic research, he founded RnKolektive, a collaborative platform for sculptural exploration. This parallel practice focuses on mixed-media works that merge folding techniques with blown glass, creating pieces that use the same research contributions but with an expressive intention. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.designforam.com

    19 นาที

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CDFAM Computational Design Symposium Presentation Recordings www.designforam.com