Girls’ Day at TECOSIM: insight into a female CAE engineer’s career
On 27 April 2023, fourteen schoolgirls took advantage of Germany’s Girls’ Day to gain a closer insight into the profession of a female CAE engineer and submerge themselves in the world of digital product development. The globally active engineering services provider has five locations in Germany and works for clients in the transportation and energy sectors and for industrial enterprises.
Kirstin Kasper, initiator of Girls’ Day across the different locations at TECOSIM, stressed that diversity is key to finding solutions to the challenges of our times. A mere eight percent of students were female during her own studies to become a civil engineer. She is largely surrounded by men in her professional life too. “With Girls’ Day at TECOSIM, I wish to draw attention to the fact that we need to encourage more women to pursue technical professions and also help girls overcome their fear of technology,” she states.
TECOSIM specialises in computer-aided engineering (CAE) and uses this method to optimise components which improve safety or reduce weight in vehicles and aircraft, for example. The company employs a workforce of around 130 in Germany, 30 of whom are women (23 percent) with 18 of these female employees being engineers (14 percent).
Variety: from aircraft and e-bikes through to a cable car
During Girls’ Day, each branch demonstrated different aspects of digital engineering to show how varied the discipline is. These aspects were later shared with all the schoolgirls during a final video conference. In Munich, the engineers, both male and female, explained how an egg can be packed so that it survives a fall from the first floor of a building with its shell intact. At the Stuttgart branch, the girls looked at how to simulate jumps with e-mountain bikes on the computer, thus increasing durability. In Hamburg, the topic was lightweight design in the aerospace industry while the schoolgirls in Wiesbaden worked together to simulate the behaviour of a cable car.
How do you pack a chocolate egg to ensure it won’t break into pieces?
In the Cologne office, participants concentrated on a drop test, a routine task which TECOSIM CAE engineers perform on a regular basis. The aim was to optimise production in such a way that as many eggs as possible come off the production lines undamaged. You need to be highly familiar with the product’s failure limit to ensure this is the case. Adam Török explained to the school students the questions that computer simulation (CAE) is able to answer before describing how more information can be obtained through networking, i.e. by separating a chocolate surprise egg into many different elements. The girls then studied fracture behaviour in real tests.
The TECOSIM CAE experts also showed how this experiment can be simulated on the computer, thus obtaining important findings without actually permanently damaging the product. Determined by the engineers through a series of experiments, the temperature-dependent material behaviour of chocolate was highly intriguing, even for the experts at TECOSIM. “Together with the participants, we found that a frozen egg survives only about seven percent of the drop that a room-temperature chocolate surprise egg can,” says Kirstin Kasper.
Wolfgang Dübel, the Cologne Branch Manager, then linked into the topic of occupant safety in vehicles. He showed the girls an airbag simulation and explained the methods that TECOSIM uses to enhance safety for vehicle occupants. “I’ve never thought about how such a thing works,” declared an impressed participant.
How do you become a female CAE engineer?
After a tour around the branch, the schoolgirls had the opportunity to look at computers over the shoulder of engineers as they worked. The questions they posed at all workstations and during the subsequent lunch were highly interesting: how did the CAE specialists actually become CAE specialists? What skills are particularly important? What training do you need to undergo? Answers included an interest in maths and science, an inquiring mind which wishes to delve deeper into a topic and learn, and, last but not least, studies in a scientific subject such as engineering, physics or mathematics as an excellent basis for a career in CAE.
TECOSIM took part in Girls’ Day at all its branches across Germany for the first time in 2022. “I am pleased that Executive Management supports the initiative wholeheartedly and that we were able to help the participants gain new perspectives. That is what inspires us to keep going,” affirms a pleased Kirstin Kasper. “Enhancing safety in vehicles, developing new mobility concepts and advancing transition in the energy sector form part of a future that women should play a major role in shaping.
Picture caption: Better to have a go yourself than just sit and listen: a drop test with chocolate surprise eggs.
