The COMSOL Conference was back in person for the first time in five years in the U.S., and we were joined by engineers, researchers, and scientists from across industries and academia. Over the course of the three-day event, attendees exchanged ideas, found answers to their specific modeling questions, and learned how modeling and simulation is being used in innovative ways in industries such as energy, consumer electronics, aerospace & defense, and healthcare. Here are the highlights from the COMSOL Conference 2024 Boston, including a photo gallery at the end of the blog post.
Keynote Talks Highlight the Use of Multiphysics Simulation Across Industries
The COMSOL Conference 2024 Boston featured six keynote talks given by industry leaders, each covering a uniquely interesting use of modeling and simulation. Adam Z. Weber of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory opened the event’s keynotes with his talk on transport phenomena in electrochemical energy-conversion technologies. Weber used models developed in the COMSOL Multiphysics® software to explore the tradeoffs endemic in GDE architectures for various electrochemical reactions, including CO2 reduction and O2 and H2 consumption and evolution. Next, Kiran Uppalapati of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, LLC, took the stage and gave a talk on the design and analysis of high-temperature superconductor (HTS)-based magnets for fusion applications. The long-term goal of Commonwealth Fusion Systems is to move toward commercial fusion energy through its HTS-based magnets and optimized tokamak designs.
Adam Z. Weber of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (left) and Kiran Uppalapati of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (right) presenting their respective keynote talks.
Doug Button and Joe Jankovsky of Sonos gave a keynote talk on the use of acoustic simulation for creating immersive audio experiences. In their talk, the two shared their philosophy on innovation and how they use the COMSOL Multiphysics® simulation software to quickly develop many speaker design iterations and find the best one. While they use acoustic simulation for many projects, the presentation focused on a specific speaker (the Era 300), which they brought on stage with them.
Joe Jankovsky (left) and Doug Button (right) of Sonos, Inc., on the main stage presenting their keynote talk.
Next up on the second day of the conference, Jane Cornett of Analog Devices, Inc. took the stage to present the importance and difficulty of physics-based battery model parameterization and touched on methods for in-life parameter updates. On the third day of the event, the two keynotes featured Anil Erol of Northrop Grumman, who discussed modeling low-temperature superconducting devices, and Dario Rodrigues of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who covered the use of electromagnetic-based hyperthermia therapy for a novel treatment of brain cancer.
Jane Cornett of Analog Devices, Inc. (left), Anil Erol of Northrop Grumman (center), and Dario Rodrigues of the University of Maryland School of Medicine (right), delivering their respective keynote talks.
Conference Attendees Received Modeling Insight and Support in Real Time
As is tradition, COMSOL Conference attendees got a first look at the upcoming version of the software, COMSOL Multiphysics® version 6.3. Bjorn Sjodin of COMSOL showed highlights of what’s new and the motivations behind the updates. We heard lots of positive feedback from attendees throughout the conference, many expressing that the upcoming version would make their modeling work more efficient.
In addition to the keynote covering the next version, the COMSOL Conference 2024 Boston featured more than 30 minicourses covering in-depth modeling and simulation best practices for specific application areas. These were well attended, and attendees walked away with new skills and insight into how they can put the COMSOL® software to use in their work.
To assist attendees with modeling questions, we had team members available at the demo station, where attendees received answers to their questions and 1-on-1 guidance on how to improve their models.
A model being discussed at the demo station.
12 Invited Talks Offered a Glimpse into 6 Industries and Academia
For the 2024 conference program, we invited select authors to give talks about their work in 10-minute slideshow presentations. For each invited talk session, every seat was occupied, as attendees were eager to learn about the speakers’ specific examples of how they use modeling and simulation. Engineers and researchers collectively demonstrated how simulation applies to the aerospace & defense, automotive, electronics, energy, healthcare, and maritime industries.
Josh Thomas presents his work related to a medical treatment for infections after knee replacement surgery (left), and Michael Ricci of xMEMS shows the audience the Montara 200-mm wafer during his invited talk (right).
Top Papers and Poster from the COMSOL Conference 2024 Boston
There were many excellent posters and papers submitted for the COMSOL Conference 2024 Boston, and we are grateful to the program committee members who reviewed all of the abstracts. The top submissions received awards at the conference: We recognized the three best papers and four best posters, one of which was awarded by popular vote.
Best Poster Awards
The first of the Best Poster awards went to Dominick Guida, Xiaotong H. Chadderdon, and Joshua W. Gallaway for their poster on modeling the distribution of active phases in alkaline zinc (Zn) anodes. The research team showcased how computational modeling can be used to simulate the discharge of alkaline Zn–MnO2 batteries to predict their performance.
Next, Josh Frankel, Jacob Anibal, Ethan Jarvis, and Chuck Hannon won an award for their poster on the use of modeling and DNN tool development for analyzing a selectively permeable membrane gas separation system. This poster showed models that were developed for effectively modeling species transport and the resulting retentate/permeate stream compositions in planar counterflow and spiral-wound cross-flow membrane modules.
The award-winning poster focusing on the modeling of alkaline Zn-MnO2 batteries (left) and the award-winning poster highlighting a selectively permeable membrane gas separation system (right).
The third poster to receive an award showcased the use of simulation for analyzing a light valve laser for metal 3D printing, authored by Selim Elhadj, Abdul Khan, Joe Gillespie, Cote Leblanc, and Andrew Bayramian. Specifically, it focused on the design of a light valve’s cooling and how it requires a validated numerical model of the heating of a liquid crystal layer.
Jim Freels and A.J. Baker received the Best Poster by Popular Vote award for their poster introducing a novel theory, called Truncation Error Annihilation (TEA). The poster covered the theory’s significance for generating high-fidelity, monotone, and stable CFD solutions and how it can be implemented in COMSOL Multiphysics®.
The award-winning poster about metal 3D printing (left) and the poster voted on by attendees, which introduced the TEA theory (right).
Best Paper Awards
Juliette Jacques, Timothy Rioux, Xiaojiang Xu, and John Castellani were awarded a Best Paper award for “Human Thermoregulation and Spatial Temperature for Frostbite Prediction with Bio-Heat Transfer Model”. This paper outlines male and female finite element thermoregulatory models (FETM) for frostbite prediction. Overall, the ongoing work aims to enhance the accuracy of the Wind Chill Temperature Index (WCTI) for the National Weather Service (NWS).
Juliette Jacques receiving a Best Paper award from Svante Littmarck, CEO of the COMSOL Group, (left) and Jacques presenting her award-winning paper as an invited talk (right).
The next award went to the paper titled “Potential Fields Modeling to Support Machine Learning Applications in Maritime Environments”, written by Jason McKenna, Joseph Luttrell IV, Ralf Riedel, Soumya Kar, Jeremy Karst, and P. Duff. This paper presents a comprehensive framework for using COMSOL Multiphysics® to develop and validate potential field models in maritime environments.
Jason McKenna presenting on the same topic featured in his winning paper as an invited talk.
In addition, Vivek Siddharth, David Raschka, Wojciech Piasecki, Maciej Kuniewski, and Paweł Mikrut won an award for their paper “Sweep Frequency Response Analysis of Voltage Transformer for Medium Voltage Applications”. This paper presents a computational approach to characterize the impedance of the voltage transformers as a function of frequency in the medium voltage distribution networks and to evaluate a potential risk of higher harmonics induced by inner resonant overvoltage.
Vivek Siddharth receiving a Best Paper award.
Congratulations to all!
Photo Slideshow from the COMSOL Conference 2024 Boston
The demo station.
A conference attendee presenting their poster.
Bjorn Sjodin presenting a keynote talk on COMSOL Multiphysics version 6.3.
Keynote talks eliciting questions from the audience.
Attendees grabbing giveaways.
Sean Teller of Veryst Engineering answering a question during his invited talk on magnetized target fusion.
Paul Belk of Boston Scientific presenting a custom simulation app in his invited talk.
AltaSim Technologies sponsored and exhibited at the conference.
Roshaun Titus of the Georgia Institute of Technology presenting his invited talk on printed circuit boards.
Veryst Engineering sponsored and exhibited at the conference.
A conference attendee discusses his work with COMSOL engineers. 
Svante Littmarck presenting Jim Freels, Juliette Jacques, and Vivek Siddharth with their best paper and poster awards.
Explore All of the Innovative Work
Thank you to all who attended, presented, and exhibited at the COMSOL Conference 2024 Boston! If you would like to explore all of the other innovative works that have been shared at past conferences, you can do so by checking out our Technical Papers and Presentations gallery — which will soon be updated to include the proceedings from this year’s event.
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