| Abstract Scope |
Significant improvement in the development of new materials and their transition to manufacturing and implementation is facilitated by true concurrent design of materials and systems, enabled by computational materials design, integrated computational materials engineering (ICME), and a development process that tightly couples design, build, test, and operational validation. Although computational methods have shortened materials development timelines, materials adoption often remains separated from product design, scale-up and manufacturing, limiting innovation and slowing progress. Organizational and process changes that reduce the mismatch between materials and hardware development, improve cross-functional design tradeoffs, and the use of early feedback to accelerate learning is essential. Employing a five-step development philosophy—question requirements, delete parts or processes, simplify, accelerate, and automate as a last resort—described as “the Algorithm,” is illustrated through the development of automotive gigacastings. Concurrent engineering, when paired with aggressive simplification and fast iteration, can substantially reduce complexity, cost, and development time while expanding the design space for advanced materials and structures. |