About

Table Of Contents

Focus

Since 2009, tortuetec has solved R&D problems related to materials science in engineering and production.

We have mainly worked with R&D and engineering departments of industrial corporations. Typical steps in collaboration have included:

  • Helping to define and redefine research problems
  • Developing modeling strategies that integrate existing knowledge and methodologies while revealing what is still missing
  • Designing integrated architectures of testing and simulation methods — including data flow, storage, and analysis
  • Maintaining and expanding a set of testing and simulation methods, extending them whenever necessary

These efforts have resulted in R&D architectures that we have routinely implemented to address our customers’ challenges.

In practical terms, this has often meant:

  • Simulating existing processes in metals or polymers
  • Performing laboratory tests to study material and product property evolution during process or application
  • Creating material models that connect production and product performance
  • Using these insights and models to improve process simulations and/or enhance product FEA
  • Providing simulation apps to customers, on premise or through the cloud.

Over the years, this approach has led to an integrated view of materials, processes, and products.
Through testing and simulation, we have created virtual–real pairs of processes and products that mirror and inform each other.
As a result, our work has contributed to the development and application of Digital Twins in industrial R&D.

Customers

Alas, Alpla, Araymond, Asamer Basaltic Fibers, BMW, Borealis, Compacfoam, Engel, Getzner, General Motors, Greiner Perfoam, Hörbiger Ventiltechnik, Magna ECS, Magna Powertrain, Procter & Gamble, Radici, Rotax Bombardier and Vialit.

Team Members

Thomas Dick ↗︎ (Founder, Director, Principal Engineer)

Thomas founded the company in 2009 and has navigated it through business development phases, ownership changes and mergers to this day.
Through time, marketing and sales, customer relations management and team leadership have been his main responsibilities.
His work focused on process and product development with a strong materials science background, including problem analysis, R&D strategy, and method development in testing and simulation.
He led the creation of a testing and material modeling laboratory for polymer FEA and developed material models and Digital Twin solutions for product and process development involving metals, ceramics, and polymers.
In software, he designed and led the development of lab management systems, data evaluation tools, and simulation applications, combining software architecture and programming expertise with engineering workflows.

Karl Lagler ↗︎ (Director, Senior Engineer)

Karl joined the company as co-owner and managing director from 2013 to 2015.
He led the company’s orientation towards polymer engineering and later co-shaped its reorientation towards composites. He was responsible for marketing, sales, and HR management.
He also conducted material modelling and FEA simulation work for plastics and composite applications in the automotive and aerospace sectors.

Manfred Pöckl (Testing Engineer)

Manfred joined the team from 2011 to 2014, assisting Thomas in FEA process modeling for steel strip production.
When the polymer testing laboratory was established, he was responsible for sourcing laboratory equipment, with a main focus on the thermo-mechanical test frame.
He managed the setup of the laboratory, acquired customers, and contributed to the first testing projects.

Jakob Schenkyr (Simulation Engineer)

Jakob worked with us from 2013 to 2015.
He focused on thermo-mechanical nonlinear FEA simulations using Abaqus.
Under Thomas’s guidance, he contributed to the European M-ERA.Net project XOPTICS, conducted with the Austrian and Slovak Academies of Science, supporting the development of defect-free crystallographic surfaces through FEA simulation of the diamond tip turning process.
Additionally, he contributed to FEA simulation projects on strip steel hardening and plastics crash analysis.

Andres Belles Meseguer ↗︎ (CAE & Simulation Engineer)

Andres contributed to our work from 2012 to 2013.
Guided by Thomas, his main focus was on FEA process simulation of steel rolling using Code Aster.
He also carried out CAD design work in the context of process and machinery development for basalt fiber production.

Mathias Fleisch (Python Programmer)

Mathias worked part-time from 2016 to 2018.
With Thomas’s guidance, he programmed components of a Digital Twin framework, using and contributing to modules developed by Thomas—Hephaistos for simulation and Cerberos & Charon for data management.
He advanced our modelling techniques for steel strip profiling in cold rolling and used the Python programming language to create automated meshing and evaluation methods for FEA simulations with Code Aster.

Max Samhaber (Student Intern)

Max worked with us as a student intern from 2016 to 2017.
He assisted in computer tomography evaluation as part of a project on multi-scale testing and simulation of sheet molding compound (SMC) materials.
Later, he contributed to thermo-mechanical process modelling of biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP).

Partners

Northwest Numerics Inc. ↗︎

The collaboration with Ron Foerch ↗︎ and Northwest Numerics began in 2011 with a shared vision: to develop a new material modelling framework capable of high-fidelity simulation of the nonlinear viscoelastic–viscoplastic behaviour of thermoplastic polymers.
Northwest Numerics contributed deep expertise and a well-established modelling infrastructure, while tortuetec complemented it with a shared academic origin, deep material science knowledge and industrial R&D perspectives and applications.

Working together in the Rhode Island laboratory, Ron Foerch and Thomas Dick jointly presented their results at Abaqus User Conferences in the United States and Europe.
In 2013, they launched a joint spinoff laboratory in Austria dedicated to material testing, calibration and modelling. tortuetec joined this initiative to help adapt the novel models for industrial use.

In 2017, when it was clear that the market for such advanced plastics modelling was smaller and more complex than anticipated, both partners agreed to conclude the joint venture on good terms.
The Austrian laboratory was subsequently integrated into tortuetec, which continued to build upon the experimental and simulation infrastructure developed together.

Transvalor (Z-set Software Team) ↗︎

The Z-set team — and especially Nikolai Osipov ↗︎ — collaborated with tortuetec from the very beginning to present Z-set software to Austrian and German audiences. We gave joint conference talks and attended industry expositions, sharing a dedicated Z-set booth. tortuetec used Z-set commercially for tribo-simulation, further developing algorithms that Thomas had initiated during his PhD thesis at Mines ParisTech.

Grants and Financial Support

The Vienna Business Agency ↗︎ co-funded the “Men of Action” project in 2009 and the Polymer Testing Lab in 2013.