STAR Global Conference 2013: A Family Reunion for CD-adapco Customers

Erwin Schnell from Gruner AG remembered attending one of the earliest European user conferences held by CD-adapco in the 1990s. He flew into London to meet roughly 40 fellow software users, hosted by about 10-15 CD-adapco staff members. This year, when he returns to the conference, now called STAR Global (Orlando, Florida, March 18-20), he’ll be walking into a crowd of roughly 300, according to the estimate of David Vaughn, CD-adapco’s VP of worldwide marketing.

Vaughn remembered Schnell, because he was a regular at the annual gathering. “He’s been to every single conference we’ve held,” said Vaughn. “He’s been with different companies, but he’s always been a CD-adapco user. He comes every year diligently to be a part of this get together.”

Vaughn refers to the conference as “a family get together,” an indication of the intimate community of users committed to learning, mastering, and using the company’s products. The conference usually serves as the launch party for a new version of CD-adapco’s flagship product, STAR-CCM+. This year marks the release of STAR-CCM+ 8.

“[Release 8] is a pretty big milestone,” said Vaughn, “because it’s the first release since we’ve put in place a dedicated user experience team.”

The keynote address at the conference will be delivered by Gene Kranz, NASA flight director for the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission. (Ed Harris portrayed him in the 1995 film Apollo 13, which chronicled his endeavors to save the mission from a series of disasters.)

In the media, multiphysics simulation is stealing headlines and getting the spotlight, but, Vaungh noted, “It’s really more than that. It’s about simulating the full system.” Even if you’re designing the battery, just one component in the entire vehicle, accurate simulation requires that the entire system be taken into account, he explained. CD-adapco customer Daimler is set to deliver a talk on this very topic.

For more on the conference, listen to the podcast below with CD-adapco’s David Vaungh.

To register, go to the STAR Global Conference home page.