Thursday,
September 3, 2009 - 4:00 P.M., NSH 184
The numerical implementation of established materials science principles in the form of purposeful engineering tools has brought a new level of integration of the science and engineering of materials. Parametric materials design integrating materials science, applied mechanics and quantum physics within a systems engineering framework has brought a first generation of designer "cyberalloys" that have now entered successful commercial applications, and a new enterprise of commercial materials design services has steadily grown over the past decade. The success of materials design established a basis for the recent DARPA-AIM initiative which broadened computational materials engineering to address acceleration of the full materials development and qualification cycle. As the central engine of the AIM methodology, the PrecipiCalc microstructural simulator has demonstrated both accelerated thermal process optimization at the component level and the effective forecast of manufacturing variation with efficient fusion of minimal datasets. A new level of science-based modeling accuracy is being achieved under the ONR/DARPA "D3D" Digital Structure consortium using a suite of advanced 3D tomographic characterization tools to calibrate and validate a set of high fidelity explicit 3D microstructural simulation tools spanning the hierarchy of microstructural scales. Opportunities have been identified for the application of the new paradigm to materials for extreme environments in energy systems.