A Tutorial on a Verification and Best Practices for Integrated Computational Materials (ICME)

Due to the exponential increase in the availability of computing power over the last several decades, modeling and simulation have become an important part of virtually all aspects of science, engineering, and manufacturing. For modeling and simulation to achieve the Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) stated goal of delivering tools that aid the science and engineering decision making process, thorough and unbiased assessments of the accuracy and credibility of model results are critical. This tutorial provides an overview of the topics of Verification and Validation (V&V) and Uncertainty Quantification (UQ), demonstrated by contextualized examples, with a focus on the process and quantifying the confidence that can be attributed to results of computational materials science models. While these topics have been investigated for decades in the computational fluid dynamics and structural analysis communities, the ICME community is just starting to grapple with implementing these issues and will face some unique challenges due to the range of physical phenomena that are of interest to the materials science community.
This tutorial will introduce the evolving V&V Guidelines and Recommended Best Practice for ICME1. Concepts and methodology to support this process and improve communication between the validation team (model developers and experimentalists) and the customer will be emphasized. The tutorial will lead the attendee through the process using realistic case studies.