Dr. Ing. Manuel Ramsaier

I am currently working at CFEngineering as head of the analysis and simulation department, being responsible for a team of 10 people.

In the company I developed all of our automated analysis tools in different programming languages (mostly Python / Java). I am also running a Proxmox server with a few web services for our company. The whole IT system is set up in a professional way from versioning to CI/CD up to deployment with Docker. This allowed us a tremendous productivity increase in both the design and analysis departments and increased ROI respectively.

While our core business is engineering, I involve myself heavily in developing software tools to speed up simulation computations and interpretations, interfacing software systems or automating the general development process. Software engineering has allowed me to perform my tasks as Head of Analysis better, as I can assist my colleagues to get their job done faster and with fewer errors. I am an early adopter of Cursor and use AI in my everyday workflow to automate my development process. The possibilities to improve core company processes seem endless and leveraging AI helps me tremendously. I am very familiar with getting rough prototypes in a short time as proof of concepts to find opportunities. One current example for such a prototype is a license monitor and job queuing server with output log streaming which makes sure our engineers don't have to remote into the server as much as before.

As a PhD candidate at RWU, I centered my research on utilizing graph-based design languages as the foundation for a fully automated engineering design process. I utilized the underlying abstract graph model as a central integration layer to build specific interfaces with a diverse array of software systems. Within this framework, I integrated physics-based algorithms and machine learning techniques – specifically clustering – to detect geometrical structures in topology optimization results. I further validated these modern product design systems by building functional prototypes for diverse use cases.

The master thesis was about the crack propagation calculation (numerically) in composite structures using Abaqus and the VCCT method. It led me to a better understanding of different automation techniques and finite element preprocessors. Additionally, it was the start of my YouTube channel as I provided some tutorials for applying the method for students of the University of Stuttgart.

For my bachelor thesis I decided to do it at the university of Ravensburg-Weingarten. Together with a PhD candidate I could research different bionic adhesion methods and their numerical calculations.

During my practical semester I was given the task of evaluating topology optimization and its use case for a lever structure assembly for the landing gear doors of a commercial airplane. The task was deriving a lightweight structure from the optimization results. It was the first time I had stepped in the domain of computational mechanics / numerical simulation / optimization and had a great influence on me later on with my PhD.