Below is an excerpt from a recent Tech Times article titled “How Digital Transformation in Materials Engineering Will Help in the Climate Fight.” 

ICMD®, which was just released last year, has the potential to be a game changer. Companies that license the technology have access to physics-based digital models developed over a quarter century of QuesTek projects for clients, including Apple, Boeing, and GM, and bolstered by AI and machine learning.  

“Nobody has the time and the money to go and melt hundreds of prototype materials and test them one at a time and say, aha, we found the one that works,” QuesTek executive vice president Jason Sebastian told Design News shortly after the launch of the software. “It’s better, compared with the old trial and error approach, [to use] this machine learning that narrows things down and then … a physics-based understanding to really understand what’s going on.” 

Engineers can use ICMD® to see how changes in the composition and manufacturing process, or other variables, will affect properties of a material such as strength, toughness, corrosion resistance and more. This allows for the creation of lighter, more fuel-efficient materials, alloys that eliminate or reduce the need for environmentally harmful rare earth elements, and novel materials that raise the bar on fuel efficiency at power plants. 

With these tools, industries can innovate without the barriers to entry. Gong predicts this so-called “democratization” will have major impacts on the shift away from fossil fuels, such as the development of solar panels, hydrogen containment and nuclear fusion, a few areas where the introduction of new materials are essential.  

Likely the first area to see dramatic change will be the electric battery industry, where materials only need to catch up to the existing science of sodium-ion and solid-state batteries. 

If you look at the buzz around the recent potential breakthrough in superconductors, it’s easy to see how one innovation can revolutionize an industry and help change the trajectory of climate change. Materials engineering may be next. 

Read the full article at Tech Times.