The projects selected for awards are:

• PPG Industries, Inc. will partner with LBNL to continue the modeling of an electrostatic rotary bell atomizer used to paint automobiles in a follow-on project titled “Optimizing Rotary Bell Atomization.”

• Vitro Flat Glass LLC. will partner with LLNL to develop real-time glass furnace control using a neural net-based reduced order model of a CFD simulation of molten glass flow in a follow-on project titled “Advanced Machine Learning for Glass Furnace Model Enhancement.”

• Caterpillar Inc. will partner with ANL to increase efficiency and reduce emissions on optimizing heat transfer in diesel engines through simulations of piston and spray geometry in a project titled “Heavy-duty Diesel Engine Combustion Optimization for Reduced Emissions, Reduced Heat Transfer, and Improved Fuel Economy.” Project will be co-funded by the Vehicle Technology Office and the Advanced Manufacturing Office.

  The manner in which the combusting fuel jet and in-cylinder air interact with the piston has a significant impact on combustion and emissions characteristics, as well as heat transfer to the piston. Heat loss through the piston is important from an overall engine efficiency perspective and component life. This project will optimize piston and fuel spray geometry for performance, emissions, and heat transfer objectives using state-of-the-art CFD inclusive of simultaneous gas- and solid-phase simulations on Leadership-class HPC infrastructure and will validate the optimized solution via single-cylinder engine testing leveraging additive manufacturing (AM) technologies.

• Eaton Corporation will partner with ORNL to develop waste heat recovery (WHR) technology that can be applied to industrial manufacturing processes and vehicle operations in a project titled “High Performance Computing to Enable Next-generation Low- temperature Waste Heat Recovery.”

  The research team proposes to develop an innovative direct-contact heat exchanger technology to deliver low-cost, compact, longer-lifetime, high-efficiency waste heat recovery that is optimized for a low-temperature organic Rankine cycle.

• General Motors LLC will partner with LLNL to reduce cycle time in composite manufacturing in a project titled “Computational Modeling of High Pressure Resin Transfer Molding (HP-RTM) for Automotive Structural Carbon Fiber (CF) Composites.” Project will be co-funded by the Vehicle Technology Office and the Advanced Manufacturing Office.

  High Pressure Resin Transfer Molding (HP-RTM) is a potentially game-changing manufacturing technology for allowing advanced composite materials to meet high volume automotive requirements. The proposed project addresses the challenges involved in predicting the outcome of HP-RTM manufacturing. This objective requires solving coupled multi-physics problems of fluid flow in a porous media, including fiber deformation, curing of the resin, and heat transfer between the resin and mold.

  This highly nonlinear problem will require simulating large finite element models across various scales by utilizing a large number of high performance computers. Improving predictability of the HP-RTM process will accelerate the large scale introduction of carbon fiber composites to achieve lightweighting and thus reduce both fuel consumption and emissions. A 10% implementation of carbon fiber composites in 10% of new vehicles can reduce fuel usage by 1.9 billion gallons of gasoline per year and correspondingly reduce 2.0 million tons of CO₂.

• Arconic Inc. will partner with LLNL and ORNL to develop advanced understanding of the non-equilibrium metallic phases established during metal additive manufacturing (AM) processes in a project titled “Multiscale Modeling of Microstructure Evolution During Rapid Solidification for Additive Manufacturing.” Project will be co-funded by the Office of Fossil Energy as an HPC4Materials for Severe Environments seedling project and by the Advanced Manufacturing Office as part of the HPC4Mfg portfolio.

• Vader Systems, LLC will partner with SNL to understand the physics needed to apply transition MagnetoJet (MJ) 3D printing technology to a higher melting point metals and higher ejection rates in a project titled “Computational Modeling of MHD Liquid Metal 3D Printing.”

The HPC4Mfg program, operated by DOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), leverages world-class technical expertise with high performance computing to tackle manufacturing challenges uniquely solved by computer modeling. By applying modeling, simulation, and data analytics to key manufacturing problems, the program can aid in decision-making, optimize processes and design, improve quality, predict performance and failure, reduce or eliminate testing, and shorten the time to market.

The HPC4Mfg program has so far supported 47 projects and provided more than $15 million for these public-private partnerships. Led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the program includes projects with Argonne National Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia is a new participant in the program.

The High Performance Computing program has expanded to include projects focused on advanced materials. (Earlier post.) Two seedling projects are part of DOE’s Fossil Energy High Performance Computing for Materials (HPC4Mtls) Program, which develops new or improved materials that can withstand extreme conditions.