An Inductive Design Exploration Method for Robust Multiscale Materials Design

Synthesis of hierarchical materials and products is an emerging systems design paradigm, which includes multiscale (quantum to continuum level) material simulation and product analysis models, uncertainty in the models, and the propagation of this uncertainty through the model chain. In order to support integrated multiscale materials and product design under uncertainty, we propose an inductive design exploration method (IDEM) in this paper. In IDEM, feasible ranged sets of specifications are found in a step-by-step, top-down (inductive) manner. In this method, a designer identifies feasible ranges for the interconnecting variables between the final two models in a model chain. Once feasible ranges of interconnecting variables between these two models are found, then, using this information, feasible ranges of interconnecting variables between the next to the last model and the model immediately preceding it are found. This process is continued until feasible ranged values for the input variables for the first model in the model chain are found. In IDEM, ranged sets of design specifications, instead of an optimal point solution, are identified for each segment of a multilevel design process. Hence, computer intensive calculations can be easily parallelized since the process of uncertainty analysis is decoupled from the design exploration process in IDEM. The method is demonstrated with the example of designing multifunctional energetic structural materials based on a chain of microscale and continuum level simulation models.