BENCHMARK July 2025

Breathing Life into Simulation

In this Issue:
(click on the titles to download the individual articles)

• Application of Machine Learning for Surrogate Modeling
• Setting out Your Stall - The Business of Simulation
• Just Because It Looks Good ... (doesn't make it right)
• Highlights - NAFEMS World Congress 2025
• Speaking of Simulation Part 5 - Machine Learning
• The State of AI in Engineering Simulation

BENCHED

View From Your Editorial Team

My favourite simulation stories are those that feature proper ‘real-world’ applications. They’re always the ones that resonate, for obvious reasons, and the ones that can sneak into the mainstream. Admit it – you get a little rush of excitement when you hear your own brand of simulation sauce mentioned on the six o’clock news or on that documentary you’re watching with your family; ‘Look! That’s what I do! It’s on the TV! I know this! (It’s the next best thing to ‘look mum, I’m on TV!’).

These are the stories that also usually make the most engaging presentations or magazine articles. We all know that simulation is used every day in the design and testing of virtually everything, but seeing real, relatable examples explained and discussed is always interesting. This issue includes one such story that I first saw presented at the 2024 NAFEMS Iberia Conference in Madrid – a case study based on the city’s complex road-tunnel network, demonstrating the power of combining physics-based modelling with data-driven surrogate techniques.

The recent NAFEMS World Congress is another real-world story. It saw us welcome over 650 attendees to Salzburg for the biggest and arguably best NWC yet. Feedback from the event has been fantastic, and we are delighted that the community has responded so well to our flagship event once again. As our summary of the Congress in this issue points out, the weather may not have been very bright, but the brilliance of the content in the Salzburg Congress Centre certainly shone through. Our summary includes thoughts from some of our attendees, as well as details on the award-winning presentations and papers from the event.

It'll come ‘round quickly enough, so it’s worth saving the date for the 2027 World Congress, which we’re hosting in Vancouver, Canada, on 25 – 28 April 2027. Get it in your diary now and, more importantly, bet here!

Talking of dates, the new-look ASSESS Simulation Leadership Summit will take place in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 11-13, 2026. We’re placing a greater emphasis on tangible outcomes and projects with the ASSESS initiative, our future-looking think tank, and focusing the annual summit on demonstrating leadership in the future of simulation. With a fresh impetus and direction for the coming years, we’re excited to see what the next few years hold for ASSESS, and for simulation itself.

Speaking of simulation (see what I did there?), we took our regular series LIVE during NWC25, with our very own Márton Gróza hosting a lively panel discussion on Machine Learning with some of the AI and ML experts who attended the Congress. You can read a summary of the discussion in this issue – we were pleased to bring the series off the pages of the magazine and into the real world. Going full circle, we now bring that real-world discussion back to you via the printed page.

If you have any comments, questions, or opinions on anything in this issue of Benchmark, please drop me a note – it’s always great to hear from you.

David Quinn - Editor

If you have feedback or would like to see your article featured in benchmark contact benchmark@nafems.org