QuesTek’s Executive Vice President of Market Operations Jason Sebastian, PhD recently wrote an article for SupplyChainBrain about the increasing fragility and vulnerability of supply chains, and ways manufacturers are exploring how to secure alternative materials without sacrificing performance or profitability.

Physics-based digital simulation is a promising solution that is emerging as a powerful tool for building more resilient and efficient supply chains. It’s an advanced approach to materials design that helps engineers predict how alloys will perform before they’re made. Jason writes about it in this excerpt:

Take Ti64, one of the most widely used titanium alloys, found in industries from aerospace to medical devices. This alloy gets its strength and corrosion resistance from a mix of titanium, aluminum and vanadium — but vanadium is in short supply in the U.S. This shortage drives interest in using less of it or recycling it.

Ti64 is typically 6% aluminum and 4% vanadium, but manufacturers can adjust those ratios slightly while still maintaining acceptable performance. However, the question remains: How far can we push those limits without sacrificing performance?

The answer lies in integrated computational materials engineering (ICME), a proven methodology developed at the beginning of this century that brings together a vast collective knowledge of material properties and behavior into a unified, simulation-based design process.

Instead of going through the time- and resource-intensive process of trial and error, which dominated the development of new materials prior to the 21st century, ICME allows engineers to use existing materials models and advanced simulations to predict how a material will perform under real-world conditions.

Read the full article at SupplyChainBrain.