Abstract
Our understanding of materials performance is based on experimental data. We use it to inform predictive models that allow us to develop better materials and sometimes even new materials. Experimental data is, however, often challenging to obtain either because the controlling factor takes place on time scales or length scales that are challenging, or the systems themselves are hazardous, especially nuclear materials. In these circumstances computer simulations can be exceptionally useful. The speaker and his research group use the results of simulation in four different ways: to provide property values for existing models and understand experimental values; to ‘check’ or ‘test’ existing assumptions; to improve existing models by ‘developing’ the physical models; or sometimes even to develop totally new models, using the simulations to ‘discover’ or ‘identify’ the physics/chemistry behind the process. In this lecture, the speaker will consider each of these in turn, to see how high performance computing can add value to the development of materials.
About the speaker
Prof Robin Grimes obtained his PhD from the University of Keele. He joined the Department of Materials in Imperial College London as Governors’ Lecturer in 1995 and became Professor of Materials Physics in 2002. Prof Grimes also worked as Assistant Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory at the Royal Institution of Great Britain and as Bernd T. Matthias Scholar at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, US. In 2011, he was appointed as Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee and, in 2013, as Chief Scientific Advisor to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom.
Prof Grimes’ research focuses on the use of high performance computing techniques to understand the behavior of materials for energy applications including nuclear fission and fusion, fuel cells, batteries and solar cells. He is also the Principal Investigator of the Research Council’s UK Nuclear Fission consortium project.
Since 1984, Prof Grimes has authored over 240 peer-reviewed publications. He is currently a member of the editorial boards for Journal of Materials Science and Journal of Nuclear Materials. In 2002 he was awarded the Rosenhain Medal and in 2010 the Griffith Medal of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, of which he is a Fellow. He was also elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2013.
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