COMSOL Day: Aerospace & Defense
See what is possible with multiphysics modeling
The use of modeling and simulation for research and development (R&D) was pioneered in the aerospace and defense industry, where the COMSOL Multiphysics® software has become a trusted simulation platform. New challenges, such as aviation decarbonization, electrification, the rise of drones, integration of high-performance sensors, extreme-speed platforms, and the use of composite and ceramic materials, require high-fidelity numerical modeling for efficient and reliable R&D.
These challenges call for models that account for multiple interacting physical effects — that is, multiphysics models. For example, electrification introduces high operating power and the risk of electrical discharge, requiring accurate models of heat transfer, electric heating, and dielectric breakdown. Another example is the manufacturing of composite materials, a process involving mechanical stresses, phase change, curing of polymers, and heat transfer that must all be captured for predictive design and quality control.
COMSOL Multiphysics® provides unique multiphysics modeling capabilities to meet the needs of the aerospace and defense industry. It also includes built-in functionality for simulation app creation and model data management to support collaboration and extend simulation benefits across teams.
This COMSOL Day will showcase the use of multiphysics modeling and simulation for compressible and turbulent flows, thermal management, electrical breakdown, composite materials, and more. Through technical presentations, COMSOL engineers and keynote speakers with practical modeling experience will share insights into how simulation can be used to help address today’s challenges in aerospace and defense.
Schedule
Aerospace and defense technologies require very high-quality standards, with a focus on safety and performance. They constantly strive to incorporate new materials with specific properties, such as being lightweight, highly resistant, and stealthy, to name a few. In this challenging context, multiphysics simulation plays an important role in accelerating the development of complex and interdependent systems.
COMSOL Multiphysics® offers unparalleled coupling capabilities based on physics, enabling the creation of simulation apps as well as collaborative modeling. The software also offers simulation and model management functionality for efficient development.
This session will introduce the main features in COMSOL Multiphysics® for model development and the use of simulation apps. We will also provide an overview of the modeling capabilities of the software to address key topics in the aerospace and defense industries, including turbulent and compressible flows, aeroacoustics, nondestructive testing, composite materials, and electric discharges.
Raju Yalagada, AIRBUS
The aerospace industry is critically dependent on the integrity of its manufactured components, making it inherently vulnerable to material and process defects. Specific processes like welding are indispensable for creating strong, lightweight structures. However, they can introduce minute, critical defects that are invisible to the naked eye and may lead to catastrophic failure under the extreme operational stresses of flight. Consequently, a rigorous inspection regime is not merely a quality control measure but an absolute necessity for ensuring airworthiness and safety. Nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methodologies become paramount for this reason, enabling the precise detection and characterization of defects without compromising the structural integrity of the component, providing the confidence required for safe and reliable aerospace systems.
Electromagnetic NDE has emerged as a cornerstone technology for ensuring safety, reliability, and operational longevity of aerospace and space components. Unlike traditional inspection techniques that may compromise material integrity, electromagnetic NDE methods allow for the evaluation of structural properties and the detection of defects without detrimentally affecting the part under test. COMSOL Multiphysics® stands at the intersection of computational modeling and industrial practice, enabling sophisticated multiphysics simulations tailored for electromagnetic NDE. The presentation delves into the role of COMSOL Multiphysics® in simulating and optimizing electromagnetic NDE methods and tools, with an emphasis on eddy current array (ECA) testing and infrared thermography (IRT)-based electromagnetic heating.
Paul Rawlins, ESCO Maritime Solutions
Detectability of submarine platforms from corrosion-related signatures poses a constant risk to operations throughout a patrol. The corrosion-related signatures manifest themselves due to current flow between bare materials; coating loss on the hull; free-flood spaces; and corrosion protection (CP) systems, both active and passive, employed to prevent corrosion.
To remove the risk of detection, it is desirable to minimize signatures resulting from the corrosion process as much as is practicable. Minimizing the corrosion-related signatures requires the ability to control current flow, hence submarines are fitted with advanced CP systems. To generate the control signals required for the anodes to minimize the corrosion-related signatures, it is necessary to understand the relationships between the applied anode current, the platform’s hull potential, and the spatial propagation of the electric and magnetic fields.
The purpose of this presentation is to describe the methodologies used to obtain minimal corrosion-related signatures and the modeling processes that are used to verify and validate that the design solution meets the performance criteria. A description of the numerical modeling process of the platform will be given, detailing how the models are constructed and employed to calculate the necessary anode and cathode effects and understand the corrosion-related signatures and how they can be minimized.
Acoustic, electrical, and magnetic signatures are the unique profiles of ships and naval vessels, and characterizing them has become increasingly important for the avoidance of threats and detection, as well as for novel navigation technologies in environments where global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals are unavailable.
Modeling and simulation can be used early in the design stage of such vessels to predict and gain a better understanding of their signatures, while also providing tools to develop and optimize detection and stealth technologies, such as sonar transducers, coatings, metamaterials, underwater electric potential sensors, and magnetometers.
In this session, we will present the capabilities of COMSOL Multiphysics® for predicting signatures of ships and naval vessels as well as tools for modeling detection and stealth technologies.
Tech Lunches are informal sessions where you can interact with COMSOL staff and other attendees. You will be able to discuss any modeling-related topic that you like and have the opportunity to ask COMSOL technology product managers and applications engineers your questions. Join us!
Cedre Mercier, ONERA
This work addresses the growing challenge posed by the rapid proliferation of nanosatellites, which increases the risk of collision with space debris and complicates end-of-life monitoring. To support more reliable detection and tracking in the thermal infrared bands, temporarily accurate thermal modeling of satellites is necessary. Therefore, a comprehensive 3D thermal model was developed in COMSOL Multiphysics® with the Orbital Thermal Loads interface to simulate surface temperatures of nanosatellites under realistic LEO orbital conditions.
The COMSOL Multiphysics® model was benchmarked against several independent tools and datasets, confirming the accuracy of the thermal behavior predicted and its consistency with published literature. The validated model was then applied to various CubeSats and larger satellites. For each case, transient simulations yielded temperature maps, improving understanding of satellite thermal dynamics and its dependence on attitude and orbital parameters.
Building on these results, a standalone application was created. This automates temperature estimation and can be integrated in other codes, taking as input orbital parameters and attitude, delivering time-resolved thermal data and three-dimensional temperature maps. Together, these developments provide a complete chain for high-fidelity thermal modeling, offering new means to design, monitor, and distinguish nanosatellites and debris.
Renil-Thomas Kidagan, SAFRAN
Nondestructive evaluation (NDE) plays a critical role in ensuring the safety and reliability of aircraft components. Simulation-assisted approaches enhance the effectiveness of NDE by providing predictive insights into defect detection, signal interpretation, and inspection optimization. This work presents the simulation of induction thermography, an advanced NDE tool based on induction heating and infrared radiation for the detection of defects on aircraft components. The simulation couples two different physics modules for solving the Maxwell’s equations and the Fourier heat diffusion equation. The case studies demonstrate how simulations can replicate real-world inspection scenarios, reduce experimental costs, and improve sensitivity to various defects.
Reduced emissions, energy security, and greater automation are major drivers toward electrical propulsion and power systems. Simulation has been invaluable for design and development in electrification, offering engineers and researchers unique insight and optimization capabilities. The COMSOL Multiphysics® software can be used to model devices and processes across all aspects of the electrification ecosystem, including batteries and hydrogen fuel cells; electric motors and generators; and cables and power electronics. COMSOL Multiphysics® also includes functionality for optimization of heat transfer and thermal management.
Join us in this session to learn about the features available in COMSOL Multiphysics® for simulation across the field of electrification and how its specialized multiphysics capabilities can be leveraged to create realistic computational models.
Philippe Clouet, ONERA
Metaoptics are planar components made of nanostructures with subwavelength periodicity. These nanostructures are engineered to control their optical properties and, by extension, those of the metasurface. Their ability to produce quick variations in phase and amplitude on the scale of a nanostructure have opened new possibilities and interesting applications. This feature makes it possible to modify the wavefront of the incident wave and thus create original optical properties. In addition, they have a lower weight and volume than conventional optical components, making them ideal candidates for optical systems where space is a key issue. Because of these characteristics, metaoptics are attracting growing interest from the scientific community. Their development has expanded rapidly over the last twenty years with a wide range of applications including metalenses, optical vortex generators, polarization splitters, and photon routers.
Simulating this type of use case can be challenging. These components require thousands or even millions of nanostructures. It is essential to know their optical properties precisely, otherwise the component's performance will be compromised. At the same time, it is also crucial to minimize the calculation time required.
Learn how to use COMSOL Multiphysics® and the Application Builder to design a vortex beam generator metaoptic while keeping a reasonable computation time. We also discuss other types of photonic devices that can be created using COMSOL Multiphysics®. These components are specifically designed for the MWIR (3–5 µm) and LWIR (8–12 µm) spectral ranges and therefore have applications in industry, space, and defense.
Register for COMSOL Day: Aerospace & Defense
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For registration questions or more information contact info-uk@comsol.com.
COMSOL Day Details
November 20, 2025 | 9:30 a.m. GMT (UTC+00:00)
Invited Speakers
Raju Yalagada is an industrial composite engineer at Airbus and previously worked as a lead engineer at HCLTech, senior project associate at Indian Institute of Science, and NDT engineer at TechCorr Middle East Oilfield Services LLC. Yalagada earned an MTech in nondestructive testing and BTech in mechanical engineering, focusing on nondestructive evaluation for electromagnetic NDE, ultrasound inspection, and radiography.
Paul Rawlins is the lead research physicist at ESCO Maritime Solutions, where he has been employed for more than 25 years. His research has focused on the numerical modeling, system design, and development of control algorithms for the management of corrosion and electromagnetic signatures for naval platforms. He is a recognized national and international subject matter expert in modeling and the control of electromagnetic and corrosion-related signatures and has collaborated with numerous governments and industrial partners in these fields.
Mercier Cèdre is a PhD student specializing in the modeling of optical and thermal-infrared (8–12 µm) satellite signatures to identify spacecraft types and evaluate new observation systems. Cèdre holds two engineering degrees and a master’s degree from ENSIP, ENSMA, and the University of Poitiers. Cèdre carried out advanced CubeSat and large-satellite thermal modeling projects at ONERA. His research aims to improve the detection, tracking, and information gathering from space objects, including when they are in the earth’s shadow.
Renil Thomas Kidangan is a research engineer at Safran in the Digital Science and Technology department, where he focuses on the research and development of thermography systems that offer a digital alternative to conventional NDT techniques. Kidangan has a background in mechanical engineering with a PhD in nondestructive evaluation, particularly in thermography techniques.
Philippe Clouet is a materials engineer at Université de Technologie de Troyes (UTT) with a master's degree in nanophotonics. He is currently pursuing a PhD in the development of complex devices for nanophotonics in the Optics department at ONERA, University Paris-Saclay. He is particularly interested in the development of metaoptics for infrared applications. Clouet uses COMSOL Multiphysics® and the Application Builder to study and design components with original optical properties.