Optimization Using Metamodeling in the Context of Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME)

Predictive Design Technologies, LLC (PDT) proposes to employ Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) tools to help manufacturing industry in the United States. ICME uses computational materials science tools within a holistic system in order to accelerate materials development, improve design optimization, and unify design and manufacturing. With the advent of accurate modeling and simulation and significant increases in high performance computing (HPC) power, virtual design and manufacturing using ICME tools provide the means to reduce product development time and cost by alleviating costly trial-and-error physical design iterations while improving overall quality and manufacturing efficiency. However, if one were to use the ICME tools for a particular design, the computational cost of high-fidelity simulations combined with numerical design optimization tends to increase drastically. To date, only a few large companies have used ICME tools. A major challenge is to expand this capability to a wide range of materials and to make it more accessible to manufacturing companies small and large. PDT proposes a methodology for ICME simulation-based design optimization using Mississippi State Universitys internal state variable (ISV) plasticity-damage model that captures the microstructure-property-process relations in the materials and has been implemented in software from the DOE laboratories. To reduce the computational cost necessary for the large-scale simulations and make the methodology accessible for small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs), metamodels are employed. These approximate models (functional relationships between input and output variables) can reduce the simulation times by one to two orders of magnitude. To further reduce the computational time, PDT will also employ design of experiments method before the large-scale simulations are conducted. The design of experiments technique is used to help determine which high-delity simulations should be run and then, after the simulations are run, their results are used to develop the metamodels, which in turn are used to optimize the design. In Phase I, PDT, partners with Mississippi State University, will employ the ISV multiscale modeling with the help of metamodels to optimize the processpropertycost for tube drawing process used by Plymouth Tube Company, which involves complicated temperature and mechanical loading histories. The developed ICME metamodeling toolkits will be flexible enough to be applied to other manufacturing processes such as forging, forming, casting, extrusion, rolling, stamping, and welding/joining, and will help the general manufacturing industry in the United States to regain the competitive advantage in the global economy.