NOTE: The Materials for Extreme Environments (MEE) team has multiple on-going high strain-rate computational modeling research projects on various materials, structures, and environmental debris. The content below is a summary of all projects and is not meant to be comprehensive.
Principle Investigator(s) (PIs): Thomas Lacy, Jr.
Affiliated Researchers: Jacob Rogers, Paul Mead
Summary
The Materials for Extreme Environments (MEE) team has unique access to state-of-the-art modeling capabilities using both university and Department of Defense (DoD) based supercomputing resources. The team has experience with high-fidelity finite element models, smooth particle hydrodynamics models, and even modern DoD codes that use a hybridization of finite element and hydrodynamic techniques. Accompanying the full-scale (macroscopic) modeling approaches, the team is employing molecular dynamics (MD) codes such as LAMMPS to simulate the effects of extreme environments on the nano and micro scales. The results of MD simulations can provide a more intuitive understanding of material response to ultra-high strain rate loading (e.g., consistent with a hypervelocity impact) and educate materials models used in full-scale methods. These unique computational capabilities allow the team to develop, validate, and implement material models that match hypervelocity impact (HVI) experimental data and rapidly develop materials and structures that effectively mitigate HVI threats.
