Multiscale Modeling and Simulation of Materials: The Archetype-Genome Exemplar
Wing Kam Liu, Walter P. Murphy Professor, Northwestern University
Vice Chair of the US National Committee on TAM within the National Academies
World Class University Professor at Sung Kyun Kwan University (SKKU), S. Korea
Distinguished Scientists Program Committee at King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
http://www.tam.northwestern.edu/wkl/liu.html, w-liu@northwestern.edu
The unacceptably long time to discover new materials and incorporate them into applications is largely
associated with the need to design new materials through a time consuming and repetitive cycle of testingand experimentation. The recently announced Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitivenessoutlines a program to drastically reduce the time to discover and insert new materials in applications.
Central to this effort is a combination of advanced computational methods, the creation and sharing of big
databases of materials properties, access to fast computers, and the development of algorithms that takeadvantage of the architecture of these machines. The construction of a genome from building blocks,
termed archetypes, is the archetype-genome exemplar. All natural and synthetic systems critical to bothmankind’s infrastructure and the global ecosystem may be viewed in this physical representation. I will
present the multiscale mathematical construction and computational implementation of new theories that
contain new forms of balance laws and physically consistent constitutive relations that, by rethinking
conventional multiscale mathematics, account for each piece of the genome assembly triplet: archetypes,interactions, and their conformation. Since archetypes and their interactions contain properties difficult tocharacterize with high fidelity, and since after mixing and processing these same archetypes conform into
pseudo-random microstructures characterized by statistical descriptors, the material genome is governedby a statistical distribution that reflects these uncertainties propagating through the assembly process. The
presence of uncertainty does not debar the quantitative prediction of material genomes; instead it forcespredictions to be a genome's relevant statistical quantities such as its mean, correlations, and failurereliability. Applications to metallic material systems, polymer matrix composites, shape memory
polymers design, and design of vibration isolation-energy harvesters will be given.
Vita: Dr. Wing Kam Liu, Walter P. Murphy Professor at Northwestern University, Founding Director ofthe NSF Summer Institute on Nano Mechanics and Materials, Founding Chair of the ASME
NanoEngineering Council, Vice Chair of the US National Committee on Theoretical and Applied
Mechanics within the National Academies, and Co-Founding Director of the Northwestern University
Predictive Science and Engineering Design Program, received his B.S. from the University of Illinois atChicago; his M.S. and Ph.D. both from Caltech. He is a world leader in multiscale simulation-basedengineering and science and has applied a spectrum of atomistic, quantum, and continuum strategies
towards the understanding and design of nano-materials, biological processes, and recently the use oforganic and inorganic materials for drug delivery device, bio-sensing, and other diagnostic and therapeuticapplications. The impact of his research contributions is attested by the large number of citations to hiswork (12,750 according to Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) with an H-factor of 57; 31,500
according to Google with an H-factor of 81). In 2001, he was cited by the ISI as “one of the most highlycited, influential researchers in Engineering, and an original member highly cited researchers database”.
Selected honors include the International Association of Computational Mechanics (IACM) GaussNewton Medal, the highest award given by IACM; the ASME Dedicated Service Award, the Robert
Henry Thurston Lecture Award, the Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award, the Dedicated Service Award,
the Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal and the Melville Medal, (all from ASME); the John von Neumann Medaland the Computational Structural Mechanics Award from the US Association of Computational
Mechanics (USACM), the highest honor given by USACM; and the IACM Computational Mechanics
Award, and the Japanese Society of Mechanical Engineers. Liu chaired the ASME Applied Mechanics
Division and is a past president of USACM. He is the editor of two International Journals and honorary
editor of two journals and has been a consultant for more than 20 organizations. Liu has written threebooks; and he is a Fellow of ASME, ASCE, USACM, AAM, and IACM.