Mechanical Engineer: Explicit Dynamics Simulation of high Strain Rate Failure

Sources Sought "Mechanical Engineer: Explicit Dynamics Simulation of high Strain Rate Failure" August 3, 2018 Background NREL's Transportation and Hydrogen Systems Center is looking for an individual or company with emphasis on developing explicit finite element models of high strain rate mechanical failure incorporating material degradation due to changes in constitutive relations and properties driven by thermal and chemical evolution. The selected individual/company will be responsible for developing mechanical models of battery cell components and integrating those models with thermal and electrochemical models previously developed at NREL. For instance, as material properties change over time, the mechanical properties will change, ultimately resulting in mechanical failure (fracture, delamination, etc.). Expertise in impact simulations in LS-DYNA (e.g., material fracture in response to a crash), the evolution of the geometry and subsequent implications to device performance and safety are relevant. The work effort involves coding of relevant physics as user-defined subroutines to solve for the degradation of advanced composite materials relevant to advanced battery architectures. The focus of this research will be on incorporating mechanical failure predictions into the aforementioned subroutines. The individual/company will also design experiments and validate the simulation models by analysis of experimental data. This work effort will support R&D conducted in-house and externally by NREL researchers, other university, lab and industry participants. Job Duties Job duties include, but not limited to: Formulation of constitutive material models for high strain-rate deformation of mechanical response of multi-layered composite materials as the material properties evolve over time Identification and implementation of suitable algorithms to solve these models Building complex 3D geometries using CAD tools, meshing available geometries to suit simulation requirements for different explicit finite element solvers Integration of these models with commercial crash simulation tools (e.g., LS-DYNA) Coupling mechanical models with existing reactive flow simulations using custom script (e.g., using user-defined functions in LS-DYNA and ANSYS/Fluent) Perform multi-physics simulations on complex 3D battery geometry using NREL's high performance computing resources Design and implementation of experimental plan for validation of the results from the mechanical models and perform device-level analyses Work with NREL researchers to integrate the newly developed mechanical models with pre-existing software tools for battery modeling Perform case-studies on different structural design towards improving battery safety under a variety of standard test conditions Support the Department Of Energy program, interact with industry, Universities and national laboratory partners Document work in detailed technical memos, laboratory notebooks, milestone reports, and journal articles. Participate in technical review meetings and workshops. Assist researchers in building technical proposals. Required Education, Experience, and Skills Masters or higher degree in ME with relevant experience building explicit finite element simulations for crash response. Demonstrated ability to use sophisticated methods to model constitutive properties for mechanical stresses and failure modes in complex, multi-layered materials. Experience in modeling explicit dynamics and multi-scale simulation of structural/mechanical, thermal, and electrical response of composite systems using commercial software tools in realistic 3D geometries. Demonstrated experience with large-scale parallel programming. Hands-on experience with one or more commercial mechanical modeling codes such as LS-DYNA and ANSYS, including extensive coding expertise to develop user-defined models and custom mesh elements. Experience in mesh generation, numerical solution schemes, especially using the finite element method, error analysis and design of case-dependent convergence criteria. Preferred Qualifications Demonstrated research capability to independently solve challenging problems. Familiarity with commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software such as FLUENT and STAR-CCM+. Programming experience in C, C++, Fortran, MATLAB and/or Python. Experience designing, conducting laboratory experiments and analyzing data, both on mechanical testing of composite materials to extract constitutive relationships and failure parameters, is a plus. Experience developing software in a collaborative environment (knowledge of SCM tools such as git or svn) would be an asset. Excellent interpersonal, communication, writing and documentation skills. Demonstrated team work, creativity, innovation, and adaptability. RESPONSE REQUIREMENTS The response to this sources sought posting is limited to six (6) pages of single spaced text of 11-point Times New Roman font, with minimum 1" margins all around. Brevity is encouraged. All responses shall be submitted in writing via email to Jeffrey.Soltesz@nrel.gov. Electronic format shall be in Microsoft Word or converted to .pdf. Responses to this notice must be received on or before August 24, 2018, 5:00PM MST. Responding to this notice identifies your organization as an interested party only. Questions will not be accepted. Your submittal is not in response to a Request for Proposals (RFP).