Award

Hepburn and Sons LLC (Hepburn) teamed with Applied Impulse Inc. (Aii) propose development of a novel computational toolset for the laser driven shockwave community. The team is composed of investigators with comprehensive experience in predicting, modeling, measuring, and simulating these high-pressure, high-speed events and maintain a suite of laser equipment and diagnostics to support tool validation. The team will develop a software package that determines laser parameters capable of generating user-specified plasma pressure characteristics at a target. This software is termed Predictive Impulse and Laser Optimization Toolset (PILOT) and will utilize metamodels based on a combination of physics-based calculations and machine learning (ML) algorithms to provide reliable parameter selection for laser shock experiment design and industrial process development. Uncertainty quantification in the plasma pressure prediction sources incorporated into the toolset will provide insight into sources of uncertainty, distribution, sensitivity, and potential refinement opportunities. Diagnostic outputs in the form of free surface interferometry predictions will enable comparison of expected material responses to experimentally observable data. The toolset will allow DTRA to rapidly adapt and optimize experiments to de-risk survivability of DoD materials and structures and explore the effects of high-energy lasers to counter emerging threats. This high-speed response capability will also provide insight and process optimization benefits for commercial users of laser shock processing.