Darren will be presenting at the upcoming Simulation and Modelling 2024 conference; for a full agenda and to book your place please visit the event website.
Please could you briefly explain your role, involvement, and experience with regards to the simulation & modelling industry and this event?
Darren Woolf (DW): As a graduate engineer in the mid-90s I was sat in front of a large computer (at the time) supporting building engineering teams with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and dynamic thermal modelling (DTM) solutions to their engineering designs. It didn’t take long from being the deliverer of good or bad news – I called these ‘post mortem’ studies – to being at the centre of team activity driving the strategic approach and scenario plans in order to explore more efficient and effective designs. Over time I led the skills development and dissemination aspects of the engineering simulations and modelling approaches towards an eventual technical director or lead role within specialist groups. For many years I have been active in my engineering institution, CIBSE, co-authoring material and I am now in my 7th year as chair of their Building Simulation Group (BSG).
What, in your experience, has been the biggest roadblock for the industry over the past 2-3 years?
DW: It’s difficult to say what has been the biggest roadblock to the industry over the last 2-3 years but much easier over the last 20-30 years! As a separate role, I founded and chair the UK Urban Environmental Quality (UKUEQ) partnership – a collaboration between CIBSE Resilient Cities Group and ICE-affiliated UK Wind Engineering Society. In our recently published ‘Urban Emergency’ White Papers – download from www.cibse.org/ukueq (pull down menu) - we discuss ‘finding the right balance’, e.g. the need to work holistically across disciplines, the need to completely rejig the current limited cost-benefit analyses we conduct in support of better decision making, e.g. full value over first cost, and how better R&D is needed to support our global climate and air quality emergency. Another roadblock is the compliance mindset in industry driving decision making instead of ‘true’ performance-led design, i.e. not compliance wrapped up as performance. Finally, it is easy to point to the short-term governance from and mindset of our politicians as a roadblock but, perhaps, we need to recognise their limitations and focus the balance of our efforts differently in order to have a more direct impact.
What key topics are you excited to discuss at this year's conference?
DW: UKUEQ has been meeting monthly for coming up to two years and, during that time, we have been developing a number of publications as well as sharing our thoughts and ideas at a number of events. We are now nearing completion of the first publication to come out of this initiative ‘CFD modelling of urban vegetation systems’, which I am leading. For many years I have been talking about the need to include blue-green infrastructure within our urban designs as part of our need for climate change adaptation as well as, to some extent, mitigation. This publication should provide us with the knowledge and tools needed to quantify many of the co-benefits associated with inclusion of urban vegetation within our designs. It is hoped that the publication, with a focus on BATNEEC good practice, opens the door to many more simulation studies undertaken, having a more consistent approach, and leading to better designs with increased confidence in those designs. I will be presenting an overview of the publication which should be nearing completion.
What would you say are the areas of innovation across the UK simulation & modelling industry?
DW: I am very fortunate in my BSG Chair role to see the ‘best of’ simulation and modelling in our in industry as we guide the CIBSE Building Simulation Awards. This is the main event of our year held at Build2Perform Live. Quite often it is the early career engineers that are driving the leading edge with their innovative coding and cross-use of different tools. I often talk about moving from 10s of design solutions for a particular project to 100s or 1000s and so some of the key innovations we are seeing relate to the control and assessment of as well as the interpretation from these high-number solutions. It is important to know what to throw away as well as what to keep! I’m also a committee member of the NAFEMS CFD Working Group which is starting to try and wrap their heads around AI and machine learning. This area will, no doubt, be highly influential in many areas of our studies in time but it is so complex that practical, high value, easy access routes need to be identified and guided in order to open up the field and develop it beyond the realms of the learned few.
Who else are you most interested in hearing from on the programme?
DW: I’m interested in all the topics and roundtables listed on the programme so this is a very difficult question to answer. I feel I should take the opportunity to improve my understanding of machine learning applications and I’m always interested in multi-physics applications, particularly if it could help our UKUEQ initiative.
Why is it important for engineers to join this conference?
DW: I find that conferences like this should have a 50/50 balance between the technical learning, e.g. experiencing new or different approaches to similar problems in different industry sectors, and the networking where I can connect with people having similar and different perspectives. I also find that many aspects of my work are in the voluntary sector so I’m always looking for additional resource!
The Simulation and Modelling 2024 conference will take place on 25-26 September 2024 in Birmingham
The event is a comprehensive showcase of the latest techniques and technologies available to practitioners and will provide a crucial forum to address common challenges in model development, complexity, fidelity and speed.
Bringing together simulation practitioners and design expert from multiple engineering sectors, attendees will benefit from fresh perspectives and lessons learned from simulation projects across a wide variety of applications.
Key areas for 2024 include multiphysics applications, the use of digital twins, emerging standards, machine learning, AI and data analysis. For a full agenda and to book please visit the website.