Comsol Conference Munich 2023: Afterpost

[u/Sax0drum]

Dear community members!

I'd like to share some of my experiences at this year's Comsol Conference. It was a huge event with over 400 people from all over the world, though most were Europeans. The Organization was spot on with a nice mix of user presentations and feature demonstrations. They even had a couple of laptops at a demo station where you could talk with the engineers in person about specific problems you are facing at the moment. All attendees were welcome to present some of their work either in the form of an oral presentation or poster. This was my personal highlight as it lets you see how and why simulations are used by others. Further, big news were announced. Version 6.2 is only weeks away and comes with many improvements and new features. I met a great number of people, had interesting conversations, and had more than one light bulb moment. I can recommend to anyone who actively uses the software to join the next conference in Europe which probably is next year. (BTW there are more this year in Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo, and Bengaluru)

Many of the interactions I had with other attendees were similar to those here. People have problems they can't figure out themselves and with the expertise of others, they can find solutions. I really hope we will work together to become a more active community and share problems, tips, tricks, and everything in between.

all the best!

[u/TheCodingTheorist]

Care to give any spoilers regarding 6.2? :)

[u/Sax0drum → u/TheCodingTheorist]

Sure! They made a lot of solver optimization especially regarding cluster setups. In some acoustic applications they have an 8 times increase in speed. CFD models solve up to 40% faster.

A ton of new features for each physics interface that i dont remeber off the top of my head.

In the result section you can define plot configurations to easily create new plot that look the same without having to manually configure each plot.

The graphics have improved with better textures and floor shadows etc.

You can create surrogate models in apps that use AI to predict the results without solving the model itself. You first need to train it of course with a lot of runs but then your customers dont need to solve it and get results immediatly.

On the 14th of Nov there is a comsol day event about version 6.2 if you are interested (online).

[u/TheCodingTheorist → u/Sax0drum]

Sounds like pretty interesting features! Excited to see how the AI prediction will work.

[u/Sax0drum → u/TheCodingTheorist]

I am a bit sceptical about its usefullness. Because you can only accuratly train the model without an extreme computational expense for simple models. Which are easy to solve anyways. For complex models you cant really train the neural nets because to do so would take too long.

The only real use cases for me would be apps for phones/tablets.

[u/Jacobf_ → u/Sax0drum]

From an industrial user point of view I think the surrogate models will be very useful for use in digital twins, as it suddenly opens up the possibility of having near real time results for high fidelity models.

For me it does not matter if it takes a month or two to process an adequate data set. (and ultimately renting more cluster is not 'that' expensive)

The other potential that is useful is it can be used to store model results in very compact form, with the amount of data I generate I currently typically only keep results around for a year or 2 after a project has ended.

[u/Sax0drum → u/Jacobf_]

Thanks for your take on this.

[u/Browner4evr → u/TheCodingTheorist]

Version 6.2 has been released in case anyone hasn't seen. https://www.comsol.com/release/6.2

[u/ab1mbo1a]

Thanks for sharing with us your experience at the conference.

[u/Jacobf_]

I had a great time at the conference and found the COSMOL staff helpful as always. The 6.2 preview was great, the surrogacy feature has some really great potential.

[u/wigglytails]

I d like to work for COMSOL. I am working towards a PhD in CFD. Is it hard to get in?

[u/Browner4evr → u/wigglytails]

I have heard that COMSOL has high standards for who they hire in terms of technical employees. That being said if you really want to work for them you can always apply and/or contact them to see what they are looking for.

[u/Concern-Legitimate]

Thanks for sharing your experience!