14 Projects to Receive $4.2M for High Performance Computing-based Research

Selected projects from the winter 2020 special funding opportunity:

• CHZ Technologies, LLC will partner with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to use high performance computing (HPC) to deepen understanding of material transport, heat transfer, phase-change, and chemistry in the Thermolyzer™ technology that converts waste hydrocarbon materials into fuel gas and saleable byproducts. CHZ Technologies is affiliated with Manufacturing USA®’s Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation.
• ESI North America, Inc. will partner with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to use HPC resources to develop a data-driven approach to link features of material and manufacturing processes to the mechanical properties of thermoplastic composite parts. ESI North America, Inc. is affiliated with Manufacturing USA®’s America Makes.
• Materials Sciences LLC will partner with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to combine recent advances in topology optimization-based design, HPC, and additive manufacturing technology to develop high pressure and temperature heat exchangers. Materials Sciences LLC is affiliated with Manufacturing USA®’s America Makes.
• Raytheon Technologies Research Center (RTRC) will partner with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to use HPC-based phase-field simulations along with experimental validation to design novel titanium (Ti) alloy compositions for additive manufacturing to potentially replace currently-used wrought Ti alloys. RTRC is affiliated with Manufacturing USA®’s Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation.

Projects selected for the 2020 spring funding opportunity:

• Ford Motor Company will partner with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to improve part-scale modeling of laser powder bed fusion to improve car part quality and reduce scrap rate.
• In collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Futamura Group will accelerate development of next-generation recyclable cellulose-based packaging materials.
• General Electric, GE Research will partner with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to improve ceramic matrix composites for aviation by using advanced computational fluid dynamics and modern data analytics to rapidly develop a high-fidelity chemical vapor infiltration kinetics model.
• Machina Labs in collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will develop performance-informed aluminum sheet metal processing for bending and reducing springback for aerospace and automotive applications.
• The Procter & Gamble Company and Sandia National Laboratories will collaborate to identify process parameters to efficiently and effectively utilize raw materials and reduce energy consumption in the dewatering/drying of random foam and structured papers.
• Raytheon Technologies Research Center will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to develop multiphysics and machine learning optimization algorithms to upscale microwave-assisted plasma technology to an industrial level.
• Raytheon Technologies Research Center and Oak Ridge National Laboratory will address the need to optimize microwave-enhanced manufacturing of ceramic matrix composites.
• In a multi-lab partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Rolls-Royce Corporation will use HPC to study heat transfer coefficients between the quench oil and solid-state components in the quench heat-treatment processes for gas turbine parts.
• Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America will partner with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to improve understanding of the relationship between properties in specific solid electrolytes for improved performance of solid-state batteries.
• VAST Power Systems, Inc., Argonne National Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will continue their partnership in a Phase 2 project, which seeks to increase the number of simulations to improve the efficiency of VAST’s combustors.