CIVS Research Showcased at “Accelerating U.S. Manufacturing Prosperity with High-Performance Computing” Workshop
On February 24-26, CIVS Director Chenn Zhou and Associate Director for Research Ty Okosun attended the workshop hosted by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s High-Performance Computing for Energy Innovation (HPC4EI) program, which also celebrated its 10-year anniversary. CIVS, in collaboration with steel companies and national laboratories, has conducted five projects funded by this program. Two of these were pilot projects launched at the start of HPC4EI.
The most recent CIVS HPC4ES project was presented by Ty Okosun at the workshop. In this project, CIVS collaborated with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and SSAB to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) for rapid simulation of scrap melting in a DC electric arc furnace for steelmaking. The team used state-of-the-art electric arc furnace (EAF) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models developed at CIVS and SMSVC to simulate multiple operating conditions in an SSAB EAF. They also developed a methodology to use these simulation results to train ROMs and worked with Hong Wang at ORNL to train and evaluate the models. The presentation was followed by technical discussions with workshop participants.
The current HPC4EI program director, Aaron Fisher of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was among CIVS’s earliest collaborators on the program a decade ago. He partnered with CIVS on an HPC4Mfg Virtual Blast Furnace project that established the foundation for later development of blast furnace reduced-order models (ROMs) used in the IVBF DOE project.
The workshop convened more than 80 participants from the U.S. Department of Energy, national laboratories, academia, and industry to exchange progress and identify future directions in the application of high-performance computing (HPC), modeling and simulation, and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) to manufacturing challenges. A special town hall session with the National Institute of Standards and Technology was also included. Insights from participants will help inform priorities for the 2026–2030 National Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing, guiding federal efforts to strengthen U.S. manufacturing competitiveness.
HPC4EI Workshop photos Group