This is where visionaries, developers, and simulation engineers gather to discuss what's truly effective in the field of engineering simulation, this is where innovation and application meet.
We are bringing NAFEMS' globally recognised experience to the heart of the Americas. You have the chance to exchange ideas, acquire the latest knowledge, and explore the future of modelling, analysis, and simulation at this biennial event.
You will learn about industry trends, real-world insights, and the technologies influencing the engineering landscape of the future throughout an engaging two and a half-day event.
John Linford
NVIDIA
Advances in accelerated computing, AI‑physics models, and agentic AI are opening a new chapter in how we design and validate complex mechanical systems. GPU‑accelerated solvers and AI‑physics surrogates dramatically shorten design cycles and enable richer “what‑if” exploration, while agentic AI systems orchestrate complex workflows so experts can stay focused on engineering decisions.
NVIDIA’s John Linford will show how accelerated platforms, AI-Physics, engineering agents, and digital twins are reshaping workflows across computer-aided engineering for design and manufacturing. This session presents practical examples of how these technologies transform simulation and verification into interactive loops where faster engines and agent‑assisted engineers explore more of the design space and connect results into digital and physical twins. Looking forward, we see an AI‑native engineering environment where domain experts stay in control while accelerated design tools and agents work in tandem to optimize, test, and prepare designs for manufacturing -- cutting time to market while boosting product capability and reliability.
Brett Soltz
The Aerospace Corporation
The Aerospace Corporation collaborates closely with the United States Government and contractors to ensure launch and spacecraft programs are successful, particularly for National Security Space (NSS) missions. Schedule and cost constraints can result in truncated test programs and potential gaps in analysis and execution. To increase program success, The Aerospace Corporation leverages lessons learned from many programs and augments this insight with independent verification & validation (IV&V) activities. This talk will discuss how IV&V has played a critical role in ensuring the success of spaceflight missions.
Dr. Heather Oravec
NASA Glenn Research Center
Planetary surface mobility remains a fundamental challenge for the success of robotic and human exploration missions on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. At NASA’s John H. Glenn Research Center (GRC), cutting-edge experimental facilities and materials innovations are advancing the fundamental understanding of rover-terrain interactions and enabling next-generation mobility systems.
Specifically, the Simulated Lunar Operations (SLOPE) Laboratory, part of Glenn’s Planetary Exploration Test Facilities, provides highly controlled indoor environments to replicate lunar and Martian surface conditions for systematic assessment of rover traction, sinkage, slope traversal, and subsystems performance. With multiple soil bins containing lunar simulant and high- sinkage Mars analogs, an adjustable tilt bed, and sub-millimeter optical motion tracking, the SLOPE Lab uniquely supports full-vehicle and subsystem tests under repeatable soil mechanical states to quantify vehicle mobility across a broad range of surface conditions relevant to future missions.
Concurrent with testbed advances, NASA GRC has innovated compliant, non-pneumatic tire technologies using shape memory alloys (SMAs), materials that exhibit superelastic behavior through reversible phase transformations, to overcome limitations of traditional rigid or spring- mesh tire designs. SMA-based rover tires, built from nickel-titanium alloy elements capable of sustaining orders-of-magnitude larger recoverable strains than conventional metal springs, provide enhanced terrain envelopment, durability, and energy absorption without plastic deformation.
This approach evolves earlier airless Spring Tire concepts and delivers improved traction, resilience to extreme off-road loading, and mitigation of puncture and damage mechanisms observed on current planetary rovers. Prototypes have demonstrated robust performance in life-test rigs and simulated terrain tests, showing promise for future high-traverse-speed missions where resilient mobility systems are critical.
Together, the SLOPE Laboratory’s capability to emulate extraterrestrial terrain mechanics and the SMA tire program’s advanced materials solutions form a synergistic pathway toward enhanced surface mobility for next-generation exploration platforms. These developments support NASA’s strategic objectives to expand operational reach, increase surface traverse efficiency, and enable both robotic and human surface operations across diverse planetary environments.
Garrett Swindlehurst
General Mills
Engineers, managers, and executives who use or oversee simulation in their work are the heart of this conference. This event is for you if you want to enhance the way simulation helps your team and organisation.
Interested in presenting, sponsoring, or taking part?
Contact bel.hooley@nafems.org for more details.
| Event Type | Regional Conference |
|---|---|
| Member Price | £751.43 | $995.00 | €865.37 |
| Non-member Price | £1038.41 | $1375.00 | €1195.87 |
| Credit Price | Free when using 5 Member Credits |
| Start Date | End Date | Location | |
|---|---|---|---|
| | St Charles, USA | |
St. Charles Convention Center, located off I-70 in St. Charles, MO with easy access to highways 270, 370, 364, and 40/64.
Please plan to arrive on Tuesday, May 26 for the Welcome Reception at 5PM. Plan to leave after the last session ends on Friday, May 27 at 12:15. The airport is about 20 minutes away.
Interested in Sponsoring?
Register by March 20th to take advantage of our Early Bird Rate!
Don't have enough credits? Reach out to bel.hooley@nafems.org and ask about our credits + cash pricing!
We have 5 free student registrations available for the NAFEMS Americas Conference.
Please email kathy.elliott@nafems.org directly for details.
Stick around until the very end for your chance to win!
We’ll be raffling off gift cards worth up to $1,000, courtesy of NAFEMS and our event sponsors. You must be present to claim your prize, so don’t miss out!
Sponsored By
Outstanding extended abstract submissions will be shortlisted by the Review Committee for potential publication in the peer-reviewed Engineering Modelling, Analysis and Simulation Journal. We will assist you in transitioning your conference paper into a journal article.
EMAS has an open access publication model and is licensed under the “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International” (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) framework.
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