SANKT AUGUSTIN. In October 2012, the Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI and the SIDACT GmbH signed a cooperation agreement, defining the future cooperation between the institute and its spin-off. The acronym SIDACT stands for Simulation Data Analysis and Compression Technologies which succinctly describes the business areas of the new technology company. SIDACT is granted the exclusive marketing rights for the software programmes FEMZIP and DIFFCRASH.

“We are very pleased that SIDACT GmbH will ensure a long-term perspective for marketing, maintenance and service of these successful products developed at our institute”, commented Professor Dr. Michael Griebel, Director of the Fraunhofer Institute SCAI.

FEMZIP is built around software compression techniques for data files arising from numerical simulation programs. It compresses files consisting of several gigabytes to a fraction of their original size. FEMZIP compressed data provides shorter data transfer times, reduced archive sizes and quicker data loading.

“So far, the software is mainly deployed in the area of automotive design”, says SIDACT founder and managing director, Clemens-August Thole. “There are, however, still many possible fields of application such as the oil industry.”

Companies around the world deploying FEMZIP in their production process, according to Thole, achieve clear cost savings and corresponding productivity benefits for their development engineers. In 2007, Thole's research group was awarded the renowned Joseph-von-Fraunhofer-Prize for the FEMZIP development. From next year on, Thole, currently head of the department Numerical Software at Fraunhofer SCAI, will focus solely on his activities for SIDACT.

DIFFCRASH, also marketed by SIDACT, is a software package for the stability analysis of crashworthiness simulation in the automotive industry. Physical bifurcations in automotive design and numerical instabilities in simulation packages cause extremely sensitive dependencies of simulation results on even the smallest model changes. DIFFCRASH identifies these critical structural regions and offers suggestions for their removal, thus improving the reliability of simulation results.

SIDACT GmbH, initially employing a staff of five, has its registered office in Bonn.