Jim Gaffney – Focus Area Coordinator, Research Area 1 / Focus Area 1

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Name: Jim Gaffney
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Role in MSEE URA: Focus Area Coordinator for Research Area 1 / Focus Area 1 – Material Properties and Failure / Materials Properties for Reducing Model Uncertainty

How you are planning to work (or already working) with other researchers within the URA?

As MSEE researchers work to develop new understanding of materials properties and their uncertainties under extreme conditions, we face some key questions in relating this new understanding to real-world applications;

  • How do new models and data the explore MSEE change the output of multiphysics simulations?
  • How uncertain are those simulations, given the uncertainties in MSEE?

Focus area 1 aims to explore these issues by connecting first-principles simulations, MSEE experiments, and radiation-hydrodynamics simulations. We are working closely with other focus areas and the cross-cutting research initiatives (CCRIs) to explore the uncertainties in hydrodynamics simulations of MSEE experiments resulting from uncertainties in fundamental physics, design and perform new experiments that will better constrain our uncertainty models and ultimately reduce them, and deliver a toolkit (or canonical model) for applying this process to multiple materials of interest. We are initially focusing on uncertainties laser-driven shock experiments resulting from fundamental uncertainties in equation-of-state, which requires close collaboration between FA1 team members as well as our collaborators at laser facilities in the US to co-design experiments and diagnostics to suit the EOS-driven uncertainty model, as well as CCRI efforts to develop the required data analysis and uncertainty propagation tools. As this work progresses, we are working with Research Area 1 / Focus Area 2 researchers to develop a set of common materials of interest for the two FAs to investigate. Over the longer term, we will take the new methods and use them to help researchers from the whole URA connect their results with the applications of our sponsor.