Ohio Supercomputer Center

The U.S. Department of Energy recently awarded Engineering Mechanics Corporation of Columbus (Emc²) and its partners $1 million to develop a cloud-based tool that will simulate welding processes employed in the manufacture of metallic products. The funding gives added momentum to AweSim, a public-private, Ohio-based initiative to boost industrial use of modeling and simulation. Emc² seeks to adapt a welding design software package known as Virtual Fabrication Technology, or VFT, to a more accessible “app” format through the Ohio Supercomputer Center’s (OSC) AweSim program. VFT is a mathematics-based computational tool developed in conjunction with Caterpillar in the late 1990s, with improvements since then to permit small- and medium-sized manufacturers (SMM) to take advantage of the benefits of high performance computing. VFT allows designers to “predict weld-induced distortion and residual-stress states so that weld-design strategies can be implemented to significantly reduce or eliminate these undesirable states prior to fabrication. To read further, please visit https://www.osc.edu/press/emc%C2%B2_wins_grant_to_create_virtual_fabrication_technology_app .