SHAPE

The SHAPE Center (Simulation & Design of Heterogeneous Architectures for Performance and Energy Absorption) is a multi-disciplinary research hub dedicated to the development of the scientific understanding and computational methods needed to enable the design of materials that currently lie outside the reach of conventional approaches, supported by the NNSA Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program (PSAAP-IV).

Our vision is to establish the methodologies by which new classes of material systems tailored for impact events can be discovered and designed.

In collaboration with LANL

Our research is motivated by the observation that material systems subjected to high rate, destructive impact cannot yet be designed systematically due to complex combination of nonlinear phenomena. Traditional approaches often rely on intuition, empirical data, or limited parameter studies, which limits achievable capability.

The Center pursues an integrated program in which:

Design optimization is coupled with predictive physical models to identify architectures with targeted properties.
Uncertainty quantification and robust optimization ensure reliability of designs under variability and incomplete knowledge.
High-fidelity simulation methods with scientific machine learning capture the nonlinear, multiphysics phenomena central to impact events.
Exascale computing platforms provide the computational power needed to explore and expand design spaces.

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