US Energy Department Announces $3 Million for High Performance Computing to Advance Clean Energy Manufacturing
; Date: June 12, 2017
Tags: Department of Energy »»»» High Performance Computing »»»» Clean Energy Manufacturing
We're seeing a ray of hope that all is not bleak in Washington DC, because the US Department of Energy is still moving forward on clean energy projects. In this case they're ponying up $3 million in funding for "High Performance Computing" projects meant to be applied to manufacturing processes in the Energy Industry. Specifically: "aid in decision-making, innovate in processes and design, improve quality, predict performance and failure, quicken or eliminate testing, and/or shorten the time of adoption of new technologies."
What that means is using high end computer-aided-design technologies in the product design process. For example with virtual reality hardware, an engineering team can create a virtual 3D mockup of a product and more quickly iterate the design without having to build physical hardware. Other techniques can simulate physical stresses to predict failures without building physical hardware. In general, by using virtual modeling techniques, an engineering team can iterate through large number of designs in a fraction of the time required to build and test physical hardware.
The Department of Energy is seeking proposals in these areas --
- Proposals that require HPC modeling and simulation to overcome impactful manufacturing process challenges resulting in reduced energy consumption and/or increased productivity.
- Proposals that uniquely exploit HPC modeling and simulation to reduce energy consumption through improved clean energy technology design and clean energy manufacturing.
- Proposals that accelerate the development and qualification of new energy materials; with a primary emphasis on the nuclear and fossil energy program areas of the Department of Energy.
The Energy Department announced up to $3 million in
available support for manufacturers to use supercomputers at the department's national laboratories to tackle major manufacturing challenges. The High Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) Program enables the use of high performance computing (HPC) expertise and resources for the manufacturing sector to address research and development challenges with HPC and investigate its use to support advanced energy and manufacturing issues.
"The technologies adopted as a result of the HPC4Mfg Program can have a significant impact with potential to close the knowledge gaps in the manufacturing and energy industry," said Mark Johnson, director of the Advanced Manufacturing Office. "This program aligns well with the technical focus areas our office is pursuing in early-stage, applied research and development."
The selected projects will leverage the national labs' HPC capabilities to apply state-of-the-art modeling, simulation, and data analysis to address manufacturing challenges that will aid in decision-making, innovate in processes and design, improve quality, predict performance and failure, quicken or eliminate testing, and/or shorten the time of adoption of new technologies.
The Energy Department plans to select 8–10 projects for this fourth round of funding and seeks meritorious industry partners to participate in short-term, collaborative projects. A number of companies and their initial concepts will be selected and paired with a national lab HPC expert to jointly develop a full proposal this summer, with final selections to be announced in November. Selected projects will receive up to $300,000 to support access to supercomputers and experts at the partnering national labs, which include Lawrence Livermore, Lawrence Berkeley, and Oak Ridge national laboratories. Concept paper applications are due July 26, 2017.
The Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO), within the department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, supports early-stage applied research and development of new materials, information, and processes that improve American manufacturing's energy efficiency, as well as platform technologies for manufacturing energy products. In 2015, AMO supported Lawrence Livermore to establish the HPC4Mfg Program. The Advanced Scientific Computing Research Program within DOE's Office of Science also supports the program with HPC cycles through its Leadership Computing Challenge allocation program. Additionally, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory provides computing cycles to support this program.
The Energy Department recently announced nearly $3.9 million for
13 new projects from Round 3 of the program.
View the solicitation and submission instructions:
https://hpc4mfg.llnl.gov/proposal-call.php
Source:
U.S. Department of Energy
