CIMNE aims at providing comprehensive solutions for solving problems that affect human beings, through the integration of existing knowledge in a particular field with quantitative information emanating for prediction methods, such as computational-based techniques, and experimental measurements.
These four concepts: the problem to be solved, computational methods, experimental methods and existing knowledge can be represented by the tetrahedron shown in the figure above. Each of the nodes is connected to the other three by lines that represent information transfer pipelines.
The holistic approach for solving problems at CIMNE:
Cycle of Ideas
The mission and activity of CIMNE can be explained through the so called Cycle of Ideas:
Ideas (scientific advances) usually originate in university environments, where many professionals study, investigate and discover new areas of knowledge. The idea matures until it produces tangible results (thesis, papers, computer programs, physical devices, etc.) that have to be filed and protected. Results evolve until they reach the level of a prototype (a software code, a system, a device, etc.).
The transit of a result to a prototype demands an organization, efficient and capable staff and resources. What it is desirable is that the idea follows its route on specialized institutions, adjacent to the university, such as CIMNE, with the mission of transforming knowledge into tangible things (prototypes). The prototype develops into a product within a company. The cycle follows with the marketing of the product and ends up with the reinvestment of part of the revenues in the development of new ideas.
For over 10 years, CIMNE has been collaborating with research organizations, universities and companies in the People’s Republic of China in a number of fruitful cooperation agreements, RTD projects and some educational activities.
CIMNE has strong links with the most renowned scientific institutions in China, such as Peking University, Tsinghua University and several research centres of the Chinese Academy of Sciences or the Chinese Aeronautical Establishment.
Supported by the 6th and 7th Framework Programme and the Horizon 2020 of the European Union, CIMNE has carried out the coordination on the European side of a series of projects aimed at promoting joint EU-China research in aeronautics. CIMNE also participates in research projects in areas of risk assessment of natural disasters. The most relevant activities with China in 2019 have been:
CIMNE has collaborated for many years with Singaporean research organizations and companies in the field of biomedicine, energy and marine engineering.
The most outstanding example of research collaboration with Singaporean institutions is the study carried out in cooperation with the Tan Tock Seng Hospital and NTU on mechanistic and pathology of the genesis, growth, and rupture of abdominal aortic aneurysms.
Scipedia is a initiative promoted by CIMNE for fostering the publication and dissemination of documents in Open Access format and which has several innovative features.
The unique feature of Scipedia is that it creates and manages journals and collections of publications of individuals and groups (eg. a single author, a group of academics, a university department or a research centre, etc). The documents are generated from the “original” text of the publication in Word or Latex and can be modified with the online editor of Scipedia to embed in the document videos, data files, models, etc. The collections may include articles, monographs, books, magazines, technical reports, conference proceedings, etc. From the documents published, one can automatically generate copies in PDF or EPUB format for e-books.
All documents published in Scipedia are indexed by the main search engines of scientific and technical documents, such as Google Scholar, Open Aire, etc.
The published documents have a discussion forum where they can be commented by registered users. These comments contribute to the “popularity” of the document and increase the “prestige” of the author and of those who participate in the discussion.
All content is also traceable by Google robots (and others) so that each part of it is traceable and referenciable.
CIMNE on Scipedia
CIMNE has its own institutional profile on Scipedia that consists of four sections: Overview, Publications, Members and Analytics.
This space is a repository of papers, monographs, technical reports and conference lectures given by CIMNE researchers. Here we can find here the magazine “Revista Internacional de Métodos Numéricos en Ingeniería”, edited by CIMNE. To sum up, a confortable site where it is possible find all the scientific production of CIMNE and interact with its members.
CIMNE publishes books, journals, monographs, scientific reports and educational software on the theory and applications of numerical methods in engineering and applied science. The publications of CIMNE can be visited and ordered via Internet on the website books.cimne.com. Most publications can be freely downloaded from the web. We list below the publications of CIMNE in 2019.
Recently, it has been published the 14th edition of Webometrics Ranking of Spanish researchers and researchers working in Spanish Institutions (Spain) according to their Google Scholar Citations public profiles (http://www.webometrics.info).
This edition’s data was collected during the second week of February 2020. The list includes the top 72.000 profiles ranked by h-index in decreasing order and then by the total number of citations.
Eugenio Oñate, professor of the School of Civil Engineering of UPC, is in the position 307th of the ranking with a h-index of h=72 and 23.485 citations.
There are 98 CIMNE researchers listed in Webometrics, three of them among the 1.000 first positions:
Prof. Eugenio Oñate (307th position)
Prof. Antonio Gens (446th position)
Prof. Eduardo Alonso (825th position)
This list ranks Prof. Eugenio Oñate, director of CIMNE, as the highest cited researcher of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC).
Webcindario Ranking
Another reference website in research ranking is Webcindario (https://indice-h.webcindario.com). In March 2019, it updated its yearly list about prizes, women researchers and its ranking list by provinces.
The following list is a summary of the CIMNE researchers that appear in the one made by DIH Group / Webcindario:
Researcher Name (h (ISI/DIH) index); Knowledge area:
Oñate, Eugenio (1,5); Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications (Ranked Nº1 in this field)
Gens, Antonio (1,33); Engineering, Geological
Huerta, Antonio (1,11); Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications
The International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering has received the Severo Ochoa accreditation. CIMNE became thus one of the six “Centre for Excellence Severo Ochoa” accredited by the Spanish State Research Agency (attached to the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities).
The International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering has received the Severo Ochoa accreditation. CIMNE became thus one of the six “Centre for Excellence Severo Ochoa” accredited by the Spanish State Research Agency (attached to the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities).
For the first time, CIMNE enters in the list of the centres with the Seal of Excellence Severo Ochoa, together with CREAF, DIPC, IDAEA and IS-Global, while IBEC repeats after being selected in the 2015 call.
Severo Ochoa Centres will receive one million euros every year during four years (2019-2023), according to the provisional resolution of accreditations and public grants 2018 published by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. With this action, the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities aims to promote high-impact research carried out in the R&D centres of Spain.
The accredited centres stand out both for the international notoriety of the scientific contributions they make, and for their innovative capacity and their intense relationship with the business sector. They are also world reference centres capable of attracting international talent.
CIMNE has reinforced and reorganized its current research activities in order to contribute to overcome Four Scientific Challenges of high impact to the welfare of citizens:
4 Research Challenges
These challenges are aligned with the research and technical development (RTD) priorities of European Commission (EC) H2020 priorities and the Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2017-2020.
RCh1. Construction & Transport
The enhanced design of buildings and constructions, transport infrastructure and vehicles.
RCh 1.1. NEW NM FOR ANALYSIS OF CONSTRUCTIONS WITH NEW MATERIALS Design and construction of new sustainable, safer and affordable buildings and infrastructures.
Damage on the deformed shape of the RVE for one the most stressed elements (ECO-COMPASS)
RCh 1.2. NEW NM FOR ANALYSIS OF CONSTRUCTIONS WITH NEW MATERIAL Design of new aircrafts with improved features, such as reduced energy consumption and environmental impact, and increased safety of air transport.
Analysis of sandwich composites
RCh 1.3. NEW NM FOR ENHANCED DESIGN OF SHIPS AND MARINE STRUCTURES WITH IMPROVED PERFORMANCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL FEATURES Design and construction of environmentally friendly and faster ships that can meet the challenges of the maritime transport.
RCh2. Environment, Energy & Security
A more environmentally-friendly and safer planet.
RCh 2.1. NM FOR ENVIRONMENTAL BIOTECHNOLOGY New Numerical Methods for:
Wetlands for wastewater treatment;
Water bodies, the atmosphere, animals & lands.
Surface reactive barriers for reducing the risk of organic compounds to human and ecosystems
RCh 2.2. ADVANCED NM FOR THE PREDICTIVE IMPACT OF HAZARDS ON THE BUILT INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT Development of NM, fed with information from satellites, drones and monitoring devices at the small scale, processed via Big Data techniques, for studying:
FINAL AIM: A more environmental-friendly and safer planet.
RCh3. Manufacturing
A more competitive industrial sector.
Develop of new Numerical Methods for the predictive design of forming manufacturing processes to achieve affordable final products with the desired functionalities.
The forming manufacturing industry produces a high percentage of existing metallic & polymer components.
Examples are: additive manufacturing, sheet stamping, casting, welding, forging, machining, rolling and extrusion.
RCh4. Materials
The development of new materials with functional properties for engineering applications.
To develop new Numerical Methods (NM) for analysis and predictive design of multifunctional architected materials.
AIM: The development of new materials with functional properties for engineering applications
In photonics and acoustics for attenuating selected ranges of frequencies
To produce ultra-light materials with desired mechanical properties
Nonlinear metamaterials exhibiting extreme shock absorbing and restitution capacities
Biological active meta-materials (organ-on-a-chip devices)
Aulas CIMNE are physical spaces (Joint Labs) for cooperation in education, research and technological development (RTD) activities created jointly by CIMNE and one or several universities.
The 32 Aulas CIMNE promote educational and training activities at graduate and postgraduate level and development of RTD projects in cooperation with companies around the world.
CIMNE-USA is an educational and scientific research organization, affiliated with the International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE).
The objective of CIMNE-USA is leading scientific research and development projects supported by government, foundations and industry sources.
The branch also carries out educational activities related to advanced numerical methods. It participates in national and international conferences and symposia and works jointly with Aulas CIMNE, in cooperation with US and international universities. CIMNE-USA also supports visiting scientists.
Dr. David Cranmer (on the left side photo), CIMNE US Acting Executive Director, is a senior scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and advisor of many US companies. Mr. Varadaraju (Raju) Gandikota (on the right side photo) is CIMNE USA Scientific Director.
Selected RTD Projects
NICOP – Development of new Lagrangian computational methods for ice-ship interaction problems Funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) 30/09/2016 – 01/10/2019
CIMNE-Latin America (Santa Fe, Argentina)
CIMNE is represented in Latin America by the CIMNE Latin American Foundation (FCL).
The CIMNE-Latin American Foundation (FCL) is located in the city of Santa Fe (Argentina), the place where the first CIMNE Classroom in the Latin American region was created in cooperation with University of Litoral.
Since its creation, the CIMNE-Latin American Foundation has developed a wide range of activities in Latin America related to training, research and dissemination of advances in numerical methods.
Project Laguna Paiva. Hydrodynamic study
Many of these projects are developed with the support of CIMNE, Aulas CIMNE, universities and public organizations. The projects in which FCL participates can be classified into the following research areas:
• Engineering and Environment • Industrial Processes • Numerical Methods
FCL also takes part and organises courses, seminars, workshops, among others.
Activities
Development of advanced tools for computational design of engineering materials. CIMNE-Latin America also carries out actions of representation and dissemination of numerical methods in engineering of the centre in the area.
