Dr Philip Cardiff is an Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at UCD. Philip graduated with a BE (2008) and a PhD (2012) in mechanical engineering from University College Dublin. Subsequently, he spent time as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow working on developing computational models within the Irish Centre for Composites Research at UCD and within the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Philip is a current Irish Research Council Laureate (2019-2024), a European Research Council Consolidator Grant awardee (2024-2028, a funded investigator in the UCD Energy Insitute (https://energyinstitute.ucd.ie), a principal investigator in the UCD Centre for Biomedical Engineering, the director of Bekaert’s first University Technology Centre (www.ucd.ie/bekaert), a previous chair of the international OpenFOAM Workshop committee and current member (https://openfoamworkshop.org), an editor of the OpenFOAM Journal (https://journal.openfoam.com), and an editor of the Journal of Open Source Software (https://joss.theoj.org).
The manufacturing industry is under increasing pressure to produce components with greater functionality and stricter mechanical, geometric and chemical property requirements. Specifying the multitude of process variables presents the engineer with the daunting optimisation question: “Based on a variety of (often conflicting) performance metrics, which combination of physical, geometric and material variables will produce the optimal component?” Solving this problem effectively requires simulation tools, which accurately, efficiently and robustly predict process performance and component properties. My research within I-Form focuses on developing simulation tools that will allow manufacturing companies to assess new processes, allowing the development of next-generation products and processes. Furthermore, these novel simulation approaches can be applied to a wide range of application areas, including renewable energy, automotive, aerospace, and biomechanics.