Meet, Halewijn Stikvoort!

Recently, SIMULIA introduced the 2020 SIMULIA Champions, the inaugural team of brand ambassadors whose expertise and passion position them to advance the future of simulation technology. In this series of blogs, we will be introducing some of our individual SIMULIA Champions, finding out more about their history – and future – with the technology.

Halewijn Stikvoort is a CAE/NVH Research Engineer with Meneta Advanced Shims Technology in Denmark. Shims, Stikvoort explains, are a vital part of every car although they are not well-known outside the automotive industry. These components prevent a car’s brakes from squealing when the car  stops. Stikvoort’s greatest challenge in his career involved a task he set for himself, a task that others in the industry said would be impossible.

“I’ve had for many years now the idea that I wanted to characterize the product (shim) and understand it and be able to also simulate it,” Stikvoort says. “The important thing for understanding a product is also being able to model it and have a model describing it so that you can also extrapolate data and analyze it better in a virtual environment.”

He goes on to explain, “You have a nonlinear quasi-static system where you apply the brake. You have temperatures involved, you have wet and dry conditions, and you have temperature ramps, so it’s a very undefined state. From the undefined state you would want to extract whether it would start to squeal or not. Normally you would run about 100 dyno tests to get the brake quiet again.”

Using Abaqus, however, Stikvoort was able to simulate, analyze and implement the shim–a project he describes as still “very active.” He has a long history with Abaqus, going back to his college thesis in which he relied on the software to solve a challenging problem involving material characterization. He would go on to graduate from the Fontys University of Applied Sciences with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.

“It’s been an interesting journey,” Stikvoort reflects. “I always wanted to be an engineer from a young age. It was a way to express myself, and I also had so many questions about the environment around me.”

His father was an electrical engineer who played a vital role in the development of the CD player, so Stikvoort was exposed to engineering and sound technology from the very beginning. He still has a passion for sound, and outside of work he has built an entire sound system himself, from loudspeakers to amplifiers to a digital analog converter.

Stikvoort also enjoys playing chess and creating digital art based on fractals, which he describes as a combination of engineering and art. His love for and skill in engineering does not stop at work; it’s a vital part of his whole life. He clearly enjoys his work and thrives in an engineering atmosphere.

“The nice thing about engineering is that you’re [all] at the same level,” he says. “You work together, you have one goal…it doesn’t really matter whether you come from different companies or not, you work as a team, which has always inspired me a lot.”

He is driven by a desire to have a better understanding of how the world works and to be able to model and predict it.

“I would like to thank all the people who helped me in my journey of being an engineer and also making it possible to be on the Champions program, the people who introduced me to Abaqus and gave me training,” Stikvoort concludes.

SIMULIA is pleased to welcome Halewijn Stikvoort into the 2020 SIMULIA Champions program and excited to continue working with him in the future. Stay tuned to the blog to learn more about our other 2020 SIMULIA Champions.

Connect with Halewijn in the SIMULIA Community by visiting his profile, here.

Watch all of Halewijn’s interview, here.