Integrated Computational System for Electrochemical Device Design and Simulation

During the Phase I project, major portions of a base, open-source, easily extensible battery modeling system have been developed with a modern, modular architecture and methods. In addition to the new modules and architecture built by Illinois Rocstar, we have identified a number of available tools that fit well with our vision of the final ICED product. Open-source tools from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory CAEBAT project and proprietary, but government-funded tools from the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) will be modularized and brought into the ICED system, ensuring that the Phase II value we bring to NASA is focused on developing new capabilities such as predictive tortuosity modeling, while assembling a tool that contains the most advanced battery modeling capabilities available. Advanced science and modeling tools are rarely accepted by industry without (i) support behind them and (ii) ease of installation and use. Thus, we are focusing on bringing scientific software to industry in forms where commercial-quality, easily installed, and graphically-interfaced tools are needed by those who have no interest in developing software, and providing open-source source code to those that want it. We focus on generating predictive, advanced scientific tools to bear on problems of national interest. We bring a commercially-supported environment to the table for them, which is a service that the national laboratories cannot provide themselves. In the end, we will produce a significant advance in areas of battery modeling, while integrating multiple tools across other sources using our open-source Illinois Rocstar Multiphysics Application Coupling Toolkit (IMPACT). Our business model for providing this software to industry, government, and academia is significantly different than how most larger simulation software companies operate, and we believe has a significant value proposition to all parties that can benefit from advanced battery modeling and simulation.

Advancing power and energy storage systems for space technology cross-cutting applications has been an active area of research for NASA for the past several years. This broad area encompasses a number of subareas addressing the generation of power and/or storage of energy within the space environment. Such subareas include high energy density batteries, advanced photovoltaics, nuclear power systems, and modeling and simulation. Of particular interest are electrochemical systems, such as batteries, fuel cells, and electrolyzers, to which ICED is directly applicable. ICED supports design decisions and focuses on improving the correlation between experiments and predictions by developing and validating multiscale, physics-based models. The end goal of the ICED simulation suite is to reduce the development time of future systems and be applicable to the demands of battery R&D and space exploration. Inherent in the base system is the ability to perform simple simulations, akin to those currently available in commercial software packages, but at no cost to the user (any user, since the base system will be open-source). This Phase II project will add more advanced simulation techniques and target applications will be licensed for a fee to interested parties (all modules will be available to NASA under SBIR rules). The infrastructure is built in such a way as to integrate a wide range of applications, both currently available and yet-to-be developed.

Energy storage technologies are ubiquitous today. Cell phones, laptop computers, electric cars, alternative energy (wind, solar, etc), and many other consumer, business, and defense applications of advanced batteries exist. There are thousands of individual companies and academic institutions performing research in support of better, safer, longer lasting batteries for these applications, and ICED can assist design engineers in their quest for better batteries and shorter time-to-market. The ICED framework will not be specific to any NASA code, computing environment, or battery. We will address the general battery device design community, offering the system to industry and other government environments (DoD, DOE, etc.). The battery market is ripe with opportunity. It is permeated with small businesses that could benefit from a low-cost solution to their simulations needs, and they are growing at a rate of approximately 10% per year. Our partnership with Xerion Advanced Battery Corp will provide us insights into the battery industry not otherwise available to us. We anticipate contracting with industrial users to assemble custom multiphysics solutions for them by installing the custom simulation framework on a local compute system and delivering a customized, easy-to-use system to battery designers who are not HPC-savvy but who need and want to reap the benefits of simulation in their R&D environments.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 6) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.