Design Exploration of Engineered Materials, Products, and Associated Manufacturing Processes

In the past few years, ICME-related research has been directed towards the study of multi-scale materials design. However, relatively little has been reported on model-based methods that are of relevance to industry for the realization of engineered materials, products, and associated industrial manufacturing processes. Computational models used in the realization of engineered materials and products are fraught with uncertainty, have different levels of fidelity, are incomplete and are even likely to be inaccurate. In light of this, we adopt a robust design strategy that facilitates the exploration of the solution space thereby providing decision support to a design engineer. In this paper, we describe a foundational construct embodied in our method for design exploration, namely, the compromise Decision Support Problem. We introduce a problem that we are using to establish the efficacy of our method. It involves the integrated design of steel and gears, traversing the chain of steel making, mill production, and evolution of the material during these processes, and linking this to the mechanical design and manufacture of the gear. We provide an overview of our method to determine the operating set points for the ladle, tundish and caster operations necessary to manufacture steel of a desired set of properties. Finally, we highlight the efficacy of our method.