Medical Modelling - Analysis and Simulation in Surgery

In this Issue...

• Benchmark Challenge
  
• Numerical Evaluation of Cable stiffnesses
  
• NAFEMS World Congress
  
• Residual Stress Calculation Following a Repair Process
  
• Challenges in Uncertainty Quantification

We're taking you back-way back- in this issue. All without the need for a DeLorean, plutonium or a flux capacitor. But we’ll come back to that later, Doc.

You now (assuming you’re reading this as soon as it has hit your desk, which obviously you are) have less than a month to get your abstract in for the biennial NAFEMS World Congress, being held in San Diego in June 2015. As ever, we’re looking to make the Congress bigger and better than ever before. Every topic relating to analysis and simulation will be covered, so if you’re currently looking at the extensive (but not exhaustive) topic list thinking “my paper doesn’t fit”, then submit it anyway – chances are it will be relevant and of interest to a section of the community. The technology has become so wide-reaching in recent years that it is almost impossible to list every single relevant topic area on an A4 sheet of paper. And if you don’t have a paper to submit, please do forward details of the Congress to any colleagues. Aside from details on NAFEMS’ numerous activities over the coming months, this issue of benchmark includes some excellent technical articles from Daimler, looking at the design of cabling and cable harnesses across industry, GKN Aerospace looking at how residual stress affects a repaired component, and an excellent look at surgical optimization using FE from Beta CAE and Aristotle University. An excellent cross-section of some of the applications of simulation and analysis across industry, I’m sure you’ll agree. We also have news of a new service designed for NAFEMS members and the wider analysis community.

This is a service which has been requested from members for some time, and we hope that its introduction will provide real benefit to the community. And so, back to time travel. Some of the first publications ever produced by NAFEMS were collections of benchmark problems, which were designed to help users determine how accurate their analysis codes are. These publications are still among our ‘bestsellers’, and have become standard throughout industry in the intervening period. On page 5 of this issue, and online at nafems.org/challenge, we introduce the NAFEMS Benchmark Challenge, which will be a series of challenge problems published in the magazine and online which are available for readers to examine and respond to. And in the spirit of competition, the readers who submit the most correct answers over the next few issues will be entered into a prize draw to win an iPad mini. So, get involved in the challenge, and let’s have some fun. Enjoy this issue, and remember if you have any comments, thoughts, feedback or interesting article proposals, please get in touch at david.quinn@nafems.org