Automation of the ICME Workflow Incorporating Material Digital Twins at Different Length Scales Within a Robust Information Management System
Recent successes in Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) have demonstrated the potential in designing ‘fit-for-purpose’ materials for a given application in a cost and time efficient manner. However, the material design process must contain a level of judicious automation in the material decision process; that is implementing some optimization algorithms to truly enable the benefits of ICME, particularly when considering materials at multiple length and time scales. Furthermore, the ability to effectively store developed material models, experimental data used for validation, and link models at multiple length and time scales must be implemented to ensure traceability across the material design process, such that the data gathered can be leveraged towards efficient material design. To enable such an optimization scheme a robust framework must exist: (1) that can capture changes made at a given length scale, (2) automatically propagate changes upstream to the highest scale, and (3) evaluate the material’s performance at the structural level. In this work, a developed framework for tracking material changes, automatically running the necessary simulations to determine the properties at the next highest scale, and saving each iteration of the design process to maintain the application’s digital thread is presented for polymer matrix composites (PMCs). The Automated Information Management Across Organizations and Scales (AIMAOS) program offers users an interactive graphical user interface (GUI) for defining constituent materials, building lamina and laminates, and applying effective laminate properties to finite element and composite optimization third party software. At each length scale, the necessary input files are automatically written, and subsequent analysis tools are called to solve for effective properties at the next scale, which are then read by the AIMAOS tool and displayed to the user. As changes are made to the material at lower length scales, information is automatically propagated upstream to higher length scales, and changes made are automatically tracked and versioned to maintain traceability during the design process. The AIMAOS tools serves as the first step in enabling optimized design of composites from the nano to the macroscale for a given application.