Ziccum is carrying out intensive work on developing 3D modelling, and ultimately a Digital Twin, of LaminarPace in partnership with the ICP Institute of Computational Physics team at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences’s School of Engineering (ZHAW.) The project is crucial to accelerating LaminarPace’s industrial development and scaleout as a unique unit of pharmaceutical production.
LaminarPace has always been an advanced system driven by digital innovation, with an extensive sensor array mapping flow having grown throughout development. Ziccum is now increasing this innovation with its partnership with the ICP Institute of Computational Physics team at ZHAW – headed up by Prof. Dr. Gernot Boiger.
Modelling flow for industrial integration
3D modelling is being used to optimize LaminarPace design, exploring optimal capacity loads and increasing the repeatability of outcomes. It will be a valuable enabler of tech transfer and integration into existing pharmaceutical production chains.
The work is being carried out in partnership with Prof. Dr. Gernot Boiger, Head of Research Area Multiphysics Modelling and Imaging at ZHAW. His 20-strong team at ICP has carried out projects modelling particle flow across a wide range of industries – pharmaceutical, energy, automotive and more - for over 23 years.
"With this technology, if a customer asks 'how can I integrate LaminarPace into my industrial ‚environment', Ziccum will be able to provide them with the process parameters, material parameters or geospatial parameters they will need for their business. 3D modelling makes the answering of those kinds of questions faster and more cost-effective."
- Prof. Dr. Gernot Boiger
"With a Digital Twin of LaminarPace you can predict exactly what will happen to your final product or campaign if you change the process in a certain way, drawing on thousands of data points. If done well the Digital Twin will have exactly the same reaction to those changes as the real-life system."
- Prof. Dr. Gernot Boiger
Digital Twins for ambient drying
A cloud-enabled Digital Twin, the ultimate stage of the project, will enable even real-time modeling and optimization. The Digital Twin will be an up-to-date model of LaminarPace, enabled by vast numbers of data points from the system’s operational lifetime that will be used to make multiple models of optimized manufacturing volumes, flows and outcomes in real time. The Digital Twin will apply ZHAW’s machine learning algorithms to process LaminarPace’s historic sensor data and produce a fully optimized design model.
“With this technology we will ultimately be able to offer customers a detailed, responsive, three-dimensional picture of how LaminarPace will perform in their manufacturing environment according to temperature, volume and substance requirements. These capabilities will be major drivers for industrial partnership.”
- Ziccum Project Director Stefan Qvarnström
“With this technology we’re only limited by our imagination and our knowledge as engineers of what is possible”
- Prof. Dr. Gernot Boiger,: Head of Research Area Multiphysics Modelling and Imaging at the School of Engineering, ZHAW