Abstract
Thomas Edison once stated that "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." The trial-and-error approach to materials development has been the standard for many years, particularly with aerospace-grade composite structural materials. Material formulations are incrementally adjusted, specimens fabricated, and tests performed; and the process is repeated until the material structural requirements are met. The time, material costs, and man-power costs associated with this Edisonian approach can be prohibitive roadblocks to new material development.

Fortunately, computational methods have been developed to greatly facilitate the material development process. Using multiscale simulations, materials can be designed at multiple length scales (atomic, microscopic, bulk) and the resulting properties can be efficiently and accurately predicted. Thus, material designs can be optimized via computational modeling before the expense prototyping and testing phases begin. This presentation will outline recent efforts to develop multiscale modeling techniques, the Materials Genome Initiative, and the efforts of the newly formed NASA Space Technologies Research Institute (STRI) for Ultra-Strong Composites by Computational Design (US-COMP) to design the next generation of composite materials for deep-space exploration.

Bio
Greg Odegard is the Richard and Elizabeth Henes Professor of Computational Mechanics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics at Michigan Tech. He is the Director of the NASA Institute for Ultra-Strong Composites by Computational Design and the Site Director for the NSF Industry/University Collaborative Research Center for Novel High Voltage/Temperature Materials and Structures. Before joining the faculty at Michigan Tech, Greg was a researcher at NASA Langley Research Center from 2000-2004. His research is focused in computational modeling of advance material systems.