(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Before you can build that improved turbojet engine, before you can create that longer lasting battery, you have to ensure all the newfangled materials in it will behave the way you want—even under conditions as harsh as the upper atmosphere at supersonic speed, or the churning chemistry of an ion cell. Now computer scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have improved software that can take much of the guesswork out of tough materials problems like these.

The software package, Object-Oriented Finite element analysis (OOF) is a specialized tool to help materials designers understand how stress and other factors act on a material with a complex internal structure, as is the case with many alloys and ceramics. As its starting point, OOF uses micrographs—images of a material taken by a microscope. At the simplest level, OOF is designed to answer questions like, “I know what this material looks like and what it’s made of, but I wonder what would happen if I pull on it in different ways?” or “I have a picture of this stuff and I know that different parts expand more than others as temperature increases—I wonder where the stresses are greatest?”

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