Welcome, everyone to the latest podcast edition Reimagine Mobility. I'm here with Thomas Glatz and he works in our Advanced Simulation Technologies Group, where we do a lot of simulation tools, products and supporting our customers with simulation needs. Welcome, Thomas. Thanks for joining me. And let's start right out. Let's talk with Fuel Cell Technologies.
We had several different podcasts about fuel cell technologies, and in all of those, I usually bring up simulation because it's, in my opinion, one of the key enablers for the future of mobility and reimagining mobility that we're really talking here. So a key enabler. What do you know about simulation and for fuel cell systems? What do you see the key advances, the key points. Tell us a little bit about it. And with it, obviously, what what does simulation mean to you?
Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for having me, Stephan So, yeah, I think the first time I got in touch with the fuel cell simulation enabled was pretty much almost five years ago where we started to do the do simulation, our tools and the system simulation side. And in CruiseM and also into 3D side and FIRE M. And ever since then, yeah, it's a big part of the development process. It can help in so many ways. It can start to the beginning design or balance of plant modeling, different variant.
It's all down to the component design to the details where it can help with the model, the details of the component of the stack, but also of the so much more than just the stack, especially for the solid oxide fuel cells. It's got to balance of plant all the axillary components.
The catalysts here simulation definitely can help and yeah, obviously also towards the virtual testbed, the hardware, the loop applications to control strategy development here simulation is is key to just come down to the time and yeah just the effort also all of my days barrel allies yeah that's oh.
You mentioned SoFC about specific I think at least on the stack point of view we're heavily focused on PEM but obviously on the complete propulsion system or power plant, we, we do anything and everything when it comes to fuel cell. Okay. SoFC and PEM is there a difference when it comes to simulation on is is one more important than the other? I mean, is one simulation type more important for one or the other, SoFC or PEM? Is it equally important? Is one giving you more benefits? Less benefits?
Highlight a little bit in that regard. Yeah. As you said, we we do both and it's for us from development side and also from product side. I'd say it's equally important. It's definitely different aspects. So what, what do you focus on the simulation side? So for on the SoFC side it's much more about the balance of plant, the accelerates the entire system, also heat, regeneration and yeah, real power plant. So to say on the palm side it's much more about the vehicle integration.
Also durability especially when it comes to truck applications for example. Yeah, aging models, durability models are is a huge factor here. We have a really good offering, I'd say, which is quite unique. On the SoFC side, we are developing aging models, degradation models there, but it's there. It's much more for stationary application, much less transients. So not that of an important factor, but getting getting more and more important data as well. Okay. Interesting.
So you clearly mentioned just different applications for different sorts of simulations or different technologies using simulation. If you if you could give the listener, including me, an idea, how are customers using simulation today that may be different from you mentioned you've been in this for five years from maybe five years ago. Have you seen a trend of changes, how customers using it? Maybe to me, simulation when I first started was very little, right?
And then we started using it sort of on the side. And today it feels like it's one of the main activities is dissimilar in In your experience or what do you see? Absolutely, Yeah. When we started developing the fuel cell models, it was basically an R&D and R&D project. It was a lot of R&D work. It was like small groups, specialized groups doing this.
But now in the OEMs and also in our customers and, and the Tier Ones and Tier Twos, it's it's, it's a real product and it goes in very similar out. Then it went for conventional engines and aftertreatment and all the learnings we had with AVL we are now at the point that we actually transfer all these learnings and, and using yeah, not the exact same but I know very similar transferable manner.
We're using the models now with hybrid loop, all the, all the learnings we had and a couple of hard learnings over the years we had to make. We don't have to do it all over again. So we had a really fortunate position here as able to, to use the models there. And yeah, from our process and integration. So yeah. You're also doing simulation for battery, we're doing simulation for E motors, E axles, ADAS, lots of different things if we take battery. Right.
Which clearly any fuel cell powered vehicle or even a stationary application, probably most cases includes a battery. So let's maybe jump to batteries and tell me a little bit, are there differences between the simulation used for fuel cell? Maybe because again, you said the whole powerplant, maybe certainly for SoFC as opposed to maybe battery, that's more and more maybe focus on a cell or on a modular on a pack. Can you can you shed a little bit light on that? Definitely, yeah.
So for the battery and as you’ve said, and I fully agree if every fuel cell vehicle is a battery electric vehicle so just the power that comes from the fuel cell, but you need the battery to drive the vehicle in a sort of sort of manner. From a modeling perspective, with the fuel cell, you have to care about gasoline mix. You have to care about liquids. This is all not so much the case with battery. With battery, it's it's basically the electrically network and to cell chemistry.
And this is the core modeling part in combination with the thermal power which is outside the cooling which is a big a big factor. But yeah, you don't have to really like model all this gas, gasamanics or a flows So it's it's kind of a different but similar perspective to modeling. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Where simulation. Right. As I think both you and I agree, simulation has come a very long way in. Is today probably three times as powerful as it was just even five years ago.
I would, I would guess for a moment, you know that better. But I would guess. Where do you see simulation going from here? Is it a proportional? We continue to progress with double or tripling the capability every five years. Do you see it's somewhat leveling off. Share a little bit about what you see and what it may or may not depend on. I definitely don't see a level off. I see a strong focus and and progress on the simulation tools.
It's it's the only way really to cut down the development time and and also cost and and manpower especially with all the autonomous driving ADAS especially also and all these different configurations possibilities and variants. Do you use a fuel cell? Do you use a battery? What size? How do you combine all these new possibilities? It's so much variance. You just can't handle it without simulation tools anymore. So this this trend will strongly continue.
And also with our aerospace and all the space. Yeah, variants and activities we are all doing there, it will even continue more. So I see a very bright future for simulation. Okay. Okay. Maybe something more personal for you here. What excites you about simulation?
What made you decide to work for our Advanced Simulation Technologies Group and and be clearly, as I can tell, excited about simulation to possibility how how you and with your product and your team helps again reimagining mobility shape the future of mobility today through simulation capabilities. What excites you about simulation?
Yeah one one of the great things about simulation, in my opinion, is that you can actually observe and see and research stuff which you are not able to measure in the real and the real world. So this is like really that the one thing which I say, okay, this is super cool because for for example, the battery, you take it with simulation, you can observe what is going on inside without having to destroy it or actually there's stuff in there you can really measure. It's super hard to measure.
It's not feasible to measure it in a vehicle, but with simulation you get that inside. You can avoid this durability issues, this strains and conditions which really damaged a battery just by looking at our simulation results. And yeah, this is this is really, really great about simulation. Yeah. Now when you look at simulation and you look at your industry and your products or just generally speaking of simulation industry, where what sources do you use for you to get information?
Where do you get information about new developments in simulation? Right. How how much closer are we for a correlation between what's happening in in the real or physical world versus the simulated world? Is there a specific place people can go to because you're going to get getting your information there? You read a certain set of books, you go to certain trainings. I don't know. Can you share a little bit on that?
Yeah. So first of all, we are in a very fortunate situation with a that we have a powertrain engineering department. We have two measurements in-house. We have to test equipment in-house. So the first place where we can go is like internally coordinated with the engineers. We get a lot of feedback from, from the users on the engineering side, we get the requirements from the measurement side. We get new developments there. So this this I would say is is one major source of information.
And of course, we work closely together with universities, with research facilities to get the new trends. And also we constantly educate us further. For example, I just was on a two week battery training in Germany on a university cause like going back to school basically there are like really deep dive to knowledge again. It's it was not just me, it was the entire battery development team from, from Graz and all over the place available all over the world.
So yeah, this, this three pillars, so to say are really what we, what we get our knowledge from our ideas and also create new ideas. Yeah. So continuing education, right? As we all know, we're never done learning. Absolutely. And we're no longer here probably. So that's good to know.
If you if you take a project let's say that we did with with a customer segment, let's say passenger vehicle OEMs for the moment five years ago, and you look at how important was simulation then or how widespread, how strong of an adoption did simulation have than, let's say, for fuel cell development?
And how much is it now independent of that maybe fuel cell now is finally at the point where it really is what I'm going to take off, not like it's been for the last, let's say, ten, maybe 15 years. Just being around, but never really got to get a kick. And really that boost that I see personally now happening. But if you take that five years, how do you see that, that changing of how critical for an OEM is?
Is it fuel cell or maybe passenger vehicle OEMs enough to ride on, let's call heavy duty trucks? Probably better application. But what do you see? How critical was simulation for them five years ago versus what it is today? Oh, it's it's massive. So to give you a number, for example, in in like five years ago, we had like 20% of our test benches, for example, were virtual. And now we we had 40%. So 40% of the test benches. What we have in enable is, is virtual.
That means all of them are running on models. And this just yeah, it basically showcases how much the assimilation factor has has grown in the project. And I mean, this is that the number which is really the calibration engineers that late in the development process. So you can only imagine how much more simulation has grown. Also in the beginning of the development process, the design is, as I mentioned, so much more variety.
Complexity is now there and especially in new technologies, battery fuel cells, simulation as just, yeah, kickstart. Excellent. All right. I got two more questions.
So for more from a from a technical point of view or from your experience dealing with with customers, all over the world and now in the U.S. as well, obviously, what do you see as one of the challenges that you feel customers still maybe don't recognize you can do with simulation or maybe not use simulation to the capabilities it is capable of today, maybe wasn't five years ago, but it is today.
And anything there that you can share is like, hey, I wish, you know, customers would understand that this is more powerful here or use it better here. Just maybe something to highlight. Yeah, Yeah, that's that's exactly what we also see when when we go to customers and very often they are just kind of a tunnel vision of what you can do with simulation. But in reality it's much, much, much broader.
What you could do, Like there's so many, so many things you can do and can try and they give you one example. What we are currently working on is to use our simulation tools to bring to the customer our for his sales activities. So actually he bring out can can bring our software to his customers and on the fly and use it to generate the best yeah.
The best configuration based on the on the customers inputs and so basically you use for example a simulation tool kind of as a sales tool to a certain degree. So yeah, that can be very interesting. And of course there does, does much more.
We very often see, yeah, just limitations, like in the view of the customer, what we can do, but actually we can do much more let's say for battery that the focus is still much on the equivalent circuit models, but with electrochemical models you can already do so much more and it's just not yet there in the awareness or so it's yeah, the awareness is not there. But yeah, it's our job to do to, to make this awareness happen. So we are working hard on that. Right. And. All right.
And last questions. I've heard you play basketball in Austria. Yeah, that's correct. Basketball in Switzerland. So we have something in common, but are we interested from you? What? What did basketball teach you about, whatever the business world or teach you about maybe even simulation? Right. So anything to share there from from that perspective? Yeah, I'd say I'd say even life at a certain degree. But yeah, of course you're a simulator.
I mean, every every practice is a simulation of a game, ideally if you do it correctly. So I mean, that's what you practice for. So in the end it's you want to compete, you want to win. And that's that's the same what we do in the business world. So, yeah I it it's really told me a lot, especially also teamwork. You know I'm basically my approach to basketball is very futuristic. So I don't I'm not too much about the show. I'm about the team. So yeah, that's what I enjoy.
I played for eight years. I'm still on it on the roster in Austria, but it obviously out of the play right now. But yeah, hopefully I can I can do my 20 years at some point. That's cool. Very nice. Yeah I love it. All right Thomas thank you very much. very insightful, very interesting again simulation for me, one of the key enablers of the future of mobility and maybe even the soul tool or enabler of how do we truly reimagine mobility not only on the ground but in the air.
And as as you kind of alluded to at one point, too, in space. So thank you very much and thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks. Thanks for listening. To Reimagine Mobility Podcast. If you like this episode, please subscribe and tell a friend.