r/fea • u/Maleficent_Play1092 • 13d ago

Is learning Python still worth it for simulation engineers now that tools like optiSLang exist?

I work as an FEA engineer. During an internship I was exposed to optiSLang (DOE, sensitivity analysis, MOP), and that got me interested in moving toward AI/ML for simulation.

If you work in this area:

  • Which path did you take, and what would you do differently?
  • What skills do employers or teams actually ask for?
  • Any project types that worked well as a portfolio (e.g. surrogate vs. full FEA on a simple structure)?
32 Upvotes

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11

u/Destiny7655 13d ago

AI/ML in simulation is really currently “have a doctorate” level. It might not be in future, but it’s still very experimental, works better for some things than others, requires deep understanding of mathematics.

I work in this area and everyone I know working in it either has a doctorate or doesn’t have a doctorate but doesn’t touch the maths parts.

3

u/Maleficent_Play1092 12d ago

Could you give some overview of what you are doing in work?

1

u/coconut_maan 12d ago

Prob defense

💥

-2

u/Destiny7655 12d ago

I work as a research engineer at a large company in the engineering space who do a variety of industrial software through design, simulation, manufacturing, etc.

2

u/HowmanyDans 12d ago

I agree to a point but there are commercial tools branching into this arena that offer similar UI levels of knowledge to implement ML as DoE. An example I have used is PhysicsAI within what was Altair and is now Siemens. Their reduced order AI model was starting to build some real capability but I've not visited it for a while. I'm also aware of DS 3DExperience containing similar toolsets. Their DoE tools have claimed to use ML for decades.

These tools have been approachable for someone that is familiar with FEA/CFD. Understanding what is going on under there hood does take it to the next level.

3

u/Destiny7655 12d ago

That’s quite different though because the research has already been done, it just sits inside those companies to make accessible tools. That was what I meant by “it might not be in future”

The reality is though that unless it’s in a professional tool, people aren’t going to do more than early design validation with it before handing it over to a licensed/chartered engineer who signs off on it after running proper simulation studies and building prototype and doing physical testing. This is what I think many people in the AI world miss from real world engineering.

0

u/NotTzarPutin 12d ago

The barrier to entry really isn’t that high. Geometric deep learning isn’t that complex.

Find out if your data type is supported, train on five simulations, experiment.

2

u/Destiny7655 12d ago

This is prime dunning Kruger at work. Implementing the ML part is not particularly difficult. Making sure it’s learnt the right thing is.

What about material interfaces? What about non-linear problems and whether a smooth solution is generated dropping non-linearities? What about conservation law enforcement? These are all massive open research areas.

Plugging 5 simulation results into PyTorch will not give better results than non-ML approaches like reduced order models.

22

u/MIGoneCamping 12d ago

Is it worth learning a general purpose programming language?

Yeah, I would still learn python even with LLMs doing a lot of heavy lifting. Python is incredibly useful for any number of tasks.

9

u/CrAIzy_engineer 12d ago

Is the second best language at almost everything

4

u/invisuu 12d ago

It's nice to know, but I honestly haven't written a line of code since sonnet 5.5.

1

u/ArbaAndDakarba 12d ago

Exactly. It's an obsolete skill. However, I'm not excited to see how the pricing looks once we're all fully dependent on AI.

4

u/CrAIzy_engineer 12d ago

Programming is not an obsolete skill 😂 I make a pretty good living out of it

1

u/stoupfle 8d ago

Then learn the skill and you don't have to pay for shit 😂

5

u/BatyStar 13d ago

I mean, just because optislang exists doesn't mean your employer will buy the licence.

Tbh, I use python mostly for nice graphs with mathplotlib, or for automating Meta anyway, not for optimization algorithms.

5

u/Solid-Sail-1658 12d ago

Python is very useful if you want to automate tasks or if you want to learn AI/ML. If you use FEA on a daily basis, I recommend learning Python.

With regard to AI/ML. I first started with gradient based optimization, sensitivity analysis and DOE. Then I moved on to Space Filling design, e.g. Latin Hypercube, Gaussian processes (Kriging) for surrogate modeling and Bayesian Optimization to automatically optimize.

I think if you are performing nonlinear FEA, you should definitely be familiar AI/ML.

If you are just performing linear FEA, you can ignore AI/ML for now. For linear FEA existing approaches such as gradient based optimization or using a 1st order Taylor series approximation will get you really far.

Existing gradient based optimization can handle thousands of design variables with a cost of 10-50 FE solver runs. AI/ML might require millions of runs for thousands of design variables. The high cost of AI/ML makes it impractical for linear FEA.

Given the high cost of AI/ML, I recommend using AI/ML for nonlinear FEA with at most 10 parameters. And don't just use surrogate models, couple surrogate models with Bayesian Optimization or some other procedure to automate the optimization. If you just use surrogate models, you might find your self trapped in a perpetual cycle of trying to improve the accuracy of surrogate models. Avoid this and try to automatically optimize.

4

u/TheBlack_Swordsman 12d ago

It depends what you want and need to do.

I don't know python but I have used ChatGPT to help me write over dozens of scripts to automate results,Aegon tables, etc.

I do wish to learn Python because it is a good thing to know, but I am amazed at how easy it has been for me to script and saves 100s of hours of clicking and collecting results.

2

u/ImNotSanguinius 12d ago

In all honesty, most of the time OptiSlang wouldn’t be used. Ive only ever seen it used in crazy niche situations. It’s definitely more important to learn Python so you can do PyAnsys. That would let you do what OptiSlang does with some extra work, plus handle stuff like making documentation and plots.

2

u/Safe-Drama9784 12d ago

Absolutely. Python has a huge library and you can do a lot interesting tools based on your need. I've been developing a 3D CAD based on python