Communications of the ACM
New Projects Pair .s. Manufacturers with Hpc Resources
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The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory will support four new industry projects as part of DOE's High Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) Program.
The program pairs selected companies with national labs, including ORNL, Lawrence Berkeley, and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories, which will provide expertise in and access to high performance computing systems aimed at manufacturing challenges. Each of the initial 10 projects will be funded at approximately $300,000 for a total of $3 million.
The Advanced Manufacturing Office within DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), created the HPC4Mfg program to advance clean energy technologies, increase the efficiency of manufacturing processes, accelerate innovation, shorten the time it takes to bring new technologies to market, and improve the quality of products. The HPC4Mfg projects also support the Energy Department's broader Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative.
"Access to supercomputers in the Department of Energy's labs will provide a resource to American firms inventing and building clean energy technologies right here at home that no international competitor can match," says David Danielson, DOE's assistant secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. "The HPC4Mfg initiative pairs leading clean energy technology companies with the world-class computing tools and expertise at our national labs to drive down the cost of materials and streamline manufacturing processes. The ultimate goal of their collaboration is to increase our global competitiveness in the race to develop clean energy technology and jobs."
This effort also will advance President Obama's National Strategic Computing Initiative. The NSCI, which Obama unveiled in July 2015, calls for public-private partnerships to increase industrial adoption of high-performance computing.
ORNL will support the following phase I projects:
- United Technologies Research Center, located in East Hartford, Conn., will partner with ORNL and LLNL to develop and deploy simulation tools that predict the material microstructure during the additive manufacturing process to ensure that critical aircraft parts meet design specifications for strength and fatigue resistance, under a project entitled: "Integrated Predictive Tools for Customizing Microstructure and Material Properties of Additively Manufactured Aerospace Components."
- General Electric, New York, will partner with ORNL to assist in the local control of melt pool and microstructure in additive manufactured parts, under a project entitled: "Process Map for Tailoring Microstructure in Laser Powder Bed Fusion Manufacturing Process."
- In a separate project, GE will partner with ORNL and LLNL to improve the efficiency and component life of aircraft engines through design optimization, under a project entitled: "Massively Parallel Multi-Physics Multi-Scale Large Eddy Simulations of a Fully Integrated Aircraft Engine Combustor and High Pressure Vane."
- The AweSim program at the Ohio Supercomputer Center and the Edison Welding Institute will partner with ORNL to deploy cloud-based advanced welding simulation tool for broad industry use, under a project entitled: "Weld Predictor App."
The full list of HPC4Mfg projects is described on the LLNL website.
The new projects build on ORNL's long-standing industrial HPC partnerships program, Accelerating Competitiveness through Computational Excellence, which has helped dozens of companies access advanced computational tools at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), a DOE Office of Science User Facility. The HPC4Mfg program will also take advantage of unique resources and equipment available at DOE's Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL.
The Advanced Manufacturing Office within DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy created and funds this program.
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