TECSA is opening a unit dedicated to engineering computation and making it available also to professionals, firms and engineering companies wishing to integrate multiphysics analysis, CFD and FEM in the fields of industrial safety and fire safety engineering (FSE) without bearing the burden of the tools themselves. The new division has its own website at www.nvmeria.com
In a growing share of the assignments we receive, the question is no longer whether a rule is complied with, but how a complex system will behave under a condition that no rule describes: a release of flammable or toxic gas in a congested geometry, a structure exposed to a real rather than a nominal fire, a crowd in a building that cannot be modified, a protection system whose probability of failure on demand must be known in order to achieve a higher level of availability.
These questions are answered through calculation, using tools validated for the specific application. And calculation requires expertise, licences and, above all, a discipline of verification, sensitivity analysis and validation that cannot be improvised on the side of another assignment. This is why NVMERIA was created: the TECSA division dedicated to advanced numerical simulation and engineering computation, which joins MFC Forensic (forensic engineering in the field of industrial accidents, fires and explosions) in rounding out the group’s capabilities.
The name and the brand
Numeria is a minor Roman deity, attested in the indigitamenta and cited by Augustine on the authority of Varro, who presided over learning to count quickly. The source does not speak of counting correctly, but of counting quickly: the name therefore already contains the two qualities that make a simulation useful, because a model that delivers the right result six months after the decision has been taken is of no use at all. The logotype is written NVMERIA, with a V in place of the U, as in every monumental Roman inscription.
The symbol is an abacus, the first instrument in which a physical position represents a numerical value and the direct ancestor of every computational model: it does not calculate in place of the operator, but holds the state of the calculation while the operator works. Its shape is that of the Japanese soroban, and the choice is deliberate, because Japan’s contribution to the abacus was not its invention but the removal of everything that was not needed. Latin foundations, Japanese practice.
The element that matters most is the bronze bead, the only one outside the frame. The frame is the boundary of what can be calculated: inside it lie the data, the models, the meshes. The bead has crossed it but remains on its own rod, because the inference we deliver rests on the numbers and never abandons them. It is the division’s tagline, drawn rather than written: Beyond Calculation.
What the division does
Computational fluid dynamics for dispersion, ventilation, fire and explosion. Structural and thermomechanical analysis, including seismic vulnerability assessments and fire resistance verification using natural fire curves. Fire Safety Engineering with a full performance-based and risk-based approach. Quantitative risk analysis, reliability and safety instrumented functions. Evacuation and pedestrian movement, crowd dynamics. Detailed analysis of explosions and explosive atmospheres. Dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere and in surface water bodies. Wildfires and wildland-urban interface fires. Human reliability analysis (HRA). Fluid networks and process systems. And, where no commercial tool covers the problem, development of bespoke codes, algorithms and interfaces in various programming languages, including Python, C++ and others.
The code families
The division works with more than twenty-five codes, which can be grouped into six families: field and zone models for fire; codes for deflagration, overpressure and the structural response to explosions; codes for the study of fragment projection; integral consequence models and environments for area-wide quantitative industrial risk analysis; finite element analysis of structural and thermomechanical behaviour, including very high-velocity impact; agent-based simulation of pedestrian and crowd movement; reliability tools, fault and event trees, reliability block diagrams and RAMS analysis. These are complemented by environments for atmospheric dispersion and for pollutant dispersion in surface water bodies, for wildfire spread, and for the hydraulic verification of firefighting networks.
A service for designers too
There is a specific reason why this capability is becoming a division with its own name: we are also making it available externally.
A professional, a firm, or an engineering or specialist consultancy company facing a problem that can only be solved through advanced simulation is currently confronted with a particularly significant bill, made up of licences, the learning curve and, above all, the burden of documenting code verification and validation, mesh independence studies and sensitivity analysis, which is precisely what makes a result defensible before a regulatory authority or in court. That bill is often unjustified, because the problem arises only once, for a single, extremely complex case.
NVMERIA also works in this way: on a specialist assignment limited to the computational part, with a deliverable that slots into the designer’s own document. Or as a second opinion on a model already built by others, possibly including a peer review of the results, the outcome of which may also be a reasoned confirmation. The designer retains the assignment and the relationship with their client; we provide the number and the documentation that supports it, bringing our experience and expertise to bear, given that we use the very same tools, for the same purposes, every day on our own assignments. All this under an evocative brand, separate from the consultancy activity of TECSA S.r.l. in the same sectors, which supports and strengthens the client’s brand with the full expertise of the TECSA S.r.l. specialists dedicated to this division, without altering any balance with the end client or stakeholders. NVMERIA becomes a specialised, flexible and reliable partner: not a subcontractor.
For all enquiries: nvmeria@nvmeria.com
