Our colleagues Alex Garcia-Vergara and Johannes Losacker took part in the “Training School on Machine Learning methods for reacting flows” and the subsequent workshop “Digital Twins for the Decarbonization of hard-to-abate industries” from 9th to 13th Septmeber 2024. As part of the CYPHER Cost Action, around 30 researchers from European universities and research institutions met in Thessaloniki, Greece, to exchange ideas on the topics in lectures and hands-on sessions.
CYPHER is a European collaboration focusing on the decarbonization of energy-intensive industries through innovative approaches in the fields of combustion, fluid mechanics and data science. With a network of 33 countries including academic experts, industrial partners and policy makers, CYPHER is dedicated to the combustion of renewable synthetic fuels, high-resolution simulations, data-driven models and digital twins to drive sustainable industrial transformation.
In the Training School lectures, the respective experts presented both the basics and the current state of research from their work on machine learning. The areas of application included reduced order modeling, data compression and the acceleration of simulations in the fields of kinetic reactions, turbulence-chemistry interactions and turbulence modeling. The lectures were complemented by hands-on sessions in which participants were able to apply theory in practice on Jupiter notebooks.
In the subsequent workshop, the group of participants was expanded to include industrial partners. The role of digital tools and, in particular, digital twins in the decarbonization of high-temperature processes was discussed in presentations and a poster session. The focus was on the definition of digital twins and how they can be used to support energy-intensive processes in hard-to-abate sectors. Our colleague Alex Garcia-Vergara presented the project HyInHeat — Hydrogen Technologies for Decarbonization of Industrial Heating Processes, which demonstrates the use of hydrogen as a fuel in combustion processes in the steel and aluminium industry. As part of the project, the IOB is developing digital tools in the form of numerical models for hydrogen combustion and thermal radiation. In the same session, Shubham Shubham from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center presented the TWINGHY project — Digital Twins for Green Hydrogen Transition in Steel Industry — in which IOB is also involved.
The intensive daily program was rounded off with Joint dinners and a boat trip along the seaside of Thessaloniki. There were numerous opportunities to exchange ideas, make new contacts and explore the city together.
We would like to thank our colleagues from CYPHER for the excellent organization of the event and look forward to future meetings in this format!