CDI-EAGER: Manufacturing Modeling Simulation and Data Analysis (MSAD) Small Business Case Study

Ohio State University, The, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

Manufacturing competitiveness is a critical U.S. national interest that can benefit greatly from advanced virtual prototyping supported by high-performance computing (HPC) and related cyberinfrastructure (CI). The vision of the Manufacturing Modeling, Simulation and Data Analysis Discovery (MSAD) Program is to spur computational science and CI research through interaction with industry. The MSAD program approaches this issue through two distinct, but related, activities. The first activity is research transfer, the study of the issues that arise when applying computational science research to industrial problems. The second activity is challenge creation, the identification of research areas (such as parallel solvers and CI technologies) whose solutions will support industrial competitiveness. We study these issues from a small company perspective by collaborating with a medium-sized manufacturer in Youngstown, Ohio. We examine issues that arise in the creation of a modeling application for metal-ceramic composite materials. This application will model the displacement chemical reactions at the solid/fluid interface, in which sacrificial oxides are reduced by a molten metal and subsequently form a ceramic/metal composite. The application will be hosted in a CI environment leveraging back-end HPC resources and will be optimized for HPC execution. The benefits of the project will be (1) improved modeling tools for high performance light weight materials for products such as body armor and braking systems, (2) improved cyberinfrastructure tools for deploying industry modeling and simulation tools, (3) the identification of the technical transfer activities and research challenges in modeling metal-ceramic materials. Activities such as these are critical for the competitiveness of small to medium sized companies and play a key role in the national economic recovery.