Christian Brix Jacobsen
Senior Director
Grundfos
Christian Brix Jacobsen, Senior Director at Grundfos is heading Mechanical Development and is responsible for design of pumps and electrical motors within the company.He holds a M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Fluid Mechanics from Aalborg University in Denmark. Has more than 25 years of experience with simulation methods and the use of these in designing industrial machinery. Has 20 years of experience in managing R&D in various positions at Grundfos.Mechanical Development is a part of R&D and the organization has about 150 highly skilled engineers situated in five centers around the globe. The focus in the organization is currently on platform-based development and simulation-driven development.The overall target was to cut development time by at least a factor of two.
Former Invited Keynotes:
- Danfoss M&S Conference, July 2017
- CAE conference, Parma 2016
- TechNet Alliance Spring Meeting, Copenhagen, 2016
- Simulation Management, Gothenburg, 2013
Abstract
Implementation of Simulation Driven Development at Grundfos
The talk will cover the work that has been going on at Grundfos in regard to implementation of simulation-based design methodologies in Mechanical Development. Introducing SDD in an existing development organization has been a challenge that goes far beyond introduction of simulation tools. Most modern R&D facilities around the world has been using simulations for decades to validate their designs. The shift in paradigm that has been introduced at Grundfos is about using simulations to drive and optimize the designs. In the past most companies had engineers that used to build prototypes, test these and learn from the outcome of testing.
To use simulations to drive the design and explore the design space requires a fully digitized workflow. This goes all the way from parametric design tools that must be both flexible and robust to optimizer algorithms and various new simulation capabilities. The design engineers that used to build and test might have to change but the even the simulation specialist must change their mindset to not only be doing analyses to be doing design work. The story on how this was done in Mechanical Development at the world’s biggest pump manufacturer is interesting for other industries to hear about.
