SPECIAL NOTICE
A -- HPC4Materials in Applied Energy Technologies Program Collaborations for U.S. Companies
- Notice Date
- 2/28/2018
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 238990
— All Other Specialty Trade Contractors
- Contracting Office
- Department of Energy, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DOE Contractor), Industrial Partnerships & Commercialization, 7000 East Avenue, L-795, Livermore, California, 94550
- ZIP Code
- 94550
- Solicitation Number
- FBO374-18
- Archive Date
- 8/1/2018
- Point of Contact
- Connie L Pitcock, Phone: 925-422-1072, Lori Diachin, Phone: 925-422-7130
- E-Mail Address
-
pitcock1@llnl.gov, diachin2@llnl.gov
(pitcock1@llnl.gov, diachin2@llnl.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The High Performance Computing for Materials in Applied Energy Technologies (HPC4Mtls) Program seeks qualified industry partners to participate in short-term, collaborative projects with the Department of Energy's (DOE's) national laboratories. Through support from the Office of Fossil Energy (FE) and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Fuel Cell Technologies (FCTO) and Vehicle Technologies Offices (VTO), selected industry partners will be granted access to High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities and experienced staff at DOE National Laboratories. The collaborations will address key challenges in developing, modifying, and/or qualifying new or modified materials that perform well in severe or complex environments through the application of high performance computing, modeling, simulation, and data analysis. The offices supporting this solicitation have specific topics of interest that they are interested in receiving proposals on that are outlined in the Background Section below. Projects must demonstrate potential for lower cost alternatives to existing materials, potential for impact to energy savings, and/or the potential to reduce development time and time to market. Eligibility for this program is limited to entities that develop and/or manufacture new or modified materials in severe and complex applied energy application environments related to the missions of the supporting program offices. These materials must be developed in the U.S. for commercial applications and the organizations that support them. Selected projects will be awarded up to $300,000 to support compute cycles and work performed by the national lab partners. The industry partner must provide a participant contribution of at least 20% of the DOE funding for the project. The HPC4Mtls Program anticipates making multiple awards, subject to the availability of funding. Background DOE maintains world-class HPC expertise and facilities, currently hosting five of the top twelve most powerful computers in the world. From detailed atomic-level simulations to massive cosmological studies, researchers use HPC to probe science and technology questions inaccessible by other experimental methods. Scientific insights gained from these computational studies have drastically impacted research and technology across industrial sectors and scientific fields. Examples include additive manufacturing, oil recovery, drug development, climate science, genomics, and exploration of fundamental particles that make up our universe. From industry to academia, the scientific need for advanced computing continues to drive innovation and development for future high-performance computers and their capabilities. There is high potential for U.S. industry to utilize the power of HPC. The HPC4Mtls Program i s intended to provide HPC expertise and resources to industry to lower the risk of HPC adoption and broaden its use to support transformational and early stage technology development. This will be accomplished by supporting targeted collaborations between the DOE national laboratories and the U.S. materials development, fabrication and manufacturing industry to investigate, improve, and scale methods that will accelerate the development and deployment of materials that perform well in severe and complex energy application environments. This solicitation is aimed at demonstrating the benefit of HPC toward these goals within one year. We seek proposals that will address key challenges in developing, modifying, and/or qualifying new or modified materials that perform well in severe and complex energy application environments through the use of high performance computing, modeling, simulation, and data analysis. For each of the program offices supporting this solicitation we provide a brief description of their mission and the topics of interest to them. The Office of Fossil Energy The DOE Fossil Energy Office (FE) is the primary sponsor for this HPC4Mtls Program. FE plays a key role in helping the United States meet its continually growing need for secure, reasonably priced, and environmentally sound energy from our abundant fossil energy resources. The Office of Fossil Energy Research and Development (FER&D) program advances transformative science and innovative technologies that enable the reliable, efficient, affordable, and environmentally sound use of fossil fuels. Fossil energy sources constitute over 80% of the country's total energy use and are critical to the nation's security, economic prosperity, and growth. It partners with industry, academia, and research facilities in transformative science and innovative technologies that enable the reliable, efficient, affordable, and environmentally sound use of fossil fuels. FE supports cost ‐ shared research, development, and demonstration activities in support of early stage crosscutting next generation technologies and processes that further the development of advanced fossil technologies. Of particular interest to FE in this solicitation are: •· Predicting material behavior in specific severe environments, such as high temperature or corrosive environments, found in fossil fuel power plants •· Exploring the kinetics of materials behavioral degradation •· Improved performance of alloys (e.g., ferritic alloys by 50 ℃) •· Overcoming the barriers to the scale up of new material production from grams to kilograms, and from kilograms to tonnes •· Improving understanding of detailed processes in critical focus areas such as oxidation, corrosion, electrochemical interactions •· Overcoming barriers to the manufacture of components with High Entropy Alloys (HEA) •· Modeling and simulation tools that will reduce the time to qualification and certification of materials (e.g., ASME code materials) The Fuel Cell Technologies Office The Fuel Cell Technologies Office (FCTO) focuses on early-stage research and development (R&D) to advance hydrogen and fuel cells for transportation and diverse applications that contribute to U.S. energy independence, security and resiliency, and add to a strong domestic economy. FCTO addresses challenges facing the development of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies by integrating basic and applied research, and technology development activities. These include cost-shared research and development efforts to address key technological barriers in the areas of fuel cell cost and durability, hydrogen production cost, and hydrogen storage capacity. Three FCTO-supported consortia within the Energy Materials Network, ElectroCat, HydroGEN and HyMARC, directly address these R&D areas. Specific topics of interest to FCTO in this solicitation include: •· Improving performance and durability of electrocatalysts, such as Platinum Group Metals (PGM) free catalysts in fuel cells and electrolyzers •· Improving materials and interfaces for advanced water splitting technologies, including electrochemical, thermochemical and photoelectrochemical approaches •· Developing machine learning capabilities to predict new materials, such as for hydrogen storage, PGM-free electrocatalysts, membrane separators, and energy converters (e.g., semiconductors for photoelectrochemical hydrogen and redox materials for thermochemical hydrogen) •· Improving understanding and modeling of interactions in complex systems (e.g., coupling of changes in material properties, mass transport, and thermal management during hydrogen release reactions in materials-based hydrogen storage systems and in materials-based water-splitting systems with additional requirements on modeling the oxygen release reactions) The Vehicle Technologies Office The Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) funds early-stage, high-risk research on innovative vehicle and transportation technologies to strengthen national security, enable future economic growth, and increase transportation energy efficiency. VTO leverages the unique capabilities and world-class expertise of the national laboratory system to develop innovations in electrification, advanced combustion engines and fuels, advanced materials, and energy efficient mobility systems. As part of VTO, the Materials Technology Program supports vehicle lightweighting and improved propulsion (powertrain) efficiency focused on the following cost and performance targets : •· Enable a 25 percent weight reduction for light-duty vehicles including body, chassis, and interior as compared to a 2012 baseline at no more than a $5/lb.-saved increase in cost by 2030; •· Validate a 25 percent improvement in high temperature (300° C) component strength relative to components made with 2010 baseline cast aluminum (AL) alloys (A319 or A356) for improved efficiency light-duty engines by 2025. Specific topics of interest to VTO include the following areas: •· Predicting microstructure of cast materials based on composition, cooling rates, and heat treatment •· Improving mechanical performance of alloys at elevated temperatures (between 330℃ and 1100℃) •· Using machine learning and data analytics to identify promising new material compositions (e.g., for high temperature and for lightweight structural materials relevant to automotive use and cost constraints) •· Developing process structure models for dissimilar material joints (e.g., between advanced high strength steels, Al, Mg, carbon fiber composites combinations relevant to high volume automotive assembly) •· Modeling the aging of adhesives that bond the above four materials, and resultant properties over the life span of an automotive vehicle (how bonds evolve) Successful applicants will work collaboratively with staff from one or more of the DOE laboratories to conduct project activities across the various HPC areas of expertise, including development and optimization of modeling and simulation codes, porting and scaling of applications, application of data analytics, as well as applied research and development of tools or methods. To make the broadest impact across the industry, the project teams are expected to present their results at workshops associated with the program and at regional and national conferences. Publications in appropriate trade journals are also encouraged. The DOE national laboratory system provides the HPC expertise and capabilities for the HPC4Mtls Program. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) administers the program with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) as managing principal laboratories. Computing resources at these four laboratories, along with those at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) are available for participant use. Personnel at all the DOE national laboratories are eligible to participate in the execution of demonstration projects. Eligibility Eligibility is limited to entities that are incorporated (or otherwise formed) under the laws of a particular state or territory of the United States, and which develop and/or manufacture new or modified materials for severe and complex environments in the U.S. for commercial applications and the organizations that support them. U.S. universities, institutes, and other non-profit organizations are also eligible to participate as collaborators on a project. Funding Requirements The DOE monetary contribution for each project will not exceed $300,000. An industry partner must provide a participant contribution of at least 20% of the DOE funding for the project to support industry expertise to the project. The participant contribution can take the form of monetary funds-in or "in-kind" contributions and must come from non-federal sources unless otherwise allowed by law. Total project size cannot exceed $500,000. The DOE funding will be provided to the national laboratory (or laboratories) in support of their work under the HPC4Mtls Program. On a limited basis, students at U.S. universities may also be supported. Note: THIS IS NOT A PROCUREMENT REQUEST. Solicitation Process and Timeline This solicitation comprises a two-stage process consisting of the submission and evaluation of a two-page concept paper submitted by the industrial PI. These will be evaluated by a technical review committee on the technical challenge to be overcome; how this advances the state of the art for the industrial sector; how HPC can uniquely contribute to the solution of the technical challenge; and the impact a successful project can have. To the extent known, the technical plan should be articulated as well. The program recognizes that those industrial PIs who have not yet identified a national laboratory partner to work with will necessarily not have a complete picture of the technical solution techniques that are possible. Successful concept papers will be paired with a national laboratory partner for the development of the full proposal. Full proposals will be reviewed by a technical committee against the criteria given below. The portfolio of proposals recommended by the committee will be submitted to DOE senior managers for final selection, subject to the availability of funding. All DOE funding decisions shall be final. Upon approval from DOE, the HPC4Mtls Program Director will issue a response to each applicant and successful applicants will begin CRADA initiation. Once both parties approve the CRADA, the projects can begin execution. Failure to engage promptly in CRADA negotiations can results in rejection of the project. The portfolio of projects will be posted on http://hpc4mtls.org/. The HPC4Mtls Program reserves the right to select all, a portion, or none of the submissions. Note that if a concept paper or full proposal is technically strong, but is not selected for funding, the program management team may share them with other program offices in DOE for consideration for possible funding through those offices. Timeline Event Date (2018) Call for Proposal February 28 Concept Paper due April 19, 11:59 p.m. PDT Request for full proposal Late May Full proposal due Mid-July Finalists notified Mid-August Expected project start November Concept Paper Guidelines Interested parties will submit a concept paper describing the project objectives by the due date provided below. The concept paper will be evaluated against the documented criteria. Successful concept papers will be invited to submit a full proposal. The concept paper template can be downloaded from the web site and should be used to prepare your submission. The concept paper should not exceed two (2) single - spaced pages using 12- point font (Times New Roman preferred), formatted in a PDF file, and must include the following components under the corresponding headings below. A concept paper that does not meet the Guidelines may be rejected. A concept paper template is provided. •· Title Page: (not included in page limit) Project title ; company name, description and U.S. manufacturing location(s); company principal investigator(s) (PI) contact information. Include the DOE office and topic area listed above that your concept paper best fits, and the national lab PI contact information, if known. Acknowledgment of the required 20% cost-share and that the use of the DOE Model Short Form CRADA is acceptable. Indication of business sector and process category (list provided). •· Abstract: (150 words or less): Non-proprietary, publishable summary of problem being addressed, why problem is important to the energy future of the US, plan to address problem, and the impact the solution will have. •· Background: Explain the technical challenge to be addressed, the state-of-the-art in this area and how this work advances the state-of-the-art, how solving this problem will meet the goals of the HPC4Mtls Program, the relevant expertise of the industry partners, what national lab expertise is needed, and why national laboratory HPC resources are required and how they will be used. •· Project Plan and Objectives: Describe the technical scope of work to be performed and how this project fits into an overall solution strategy for the challenges being addressed. Describe how the results of the project will be validated, including availability of data. If possible, describe specific simulation codes to be used in this effort. •· Impact: Describe how this effort will result in long-term energy savings across the industry, materials that exceed performance boundaries of existing materials, materials that provide lower cost alternatives to existing materials, faster development times, or reduced time to market. Metrics include energy improvements, performance increases, cost savings, and/or time reductions. Impact statements should be made relative to existing state-of-the-practice and should focus on the specific improvements realized by the successful application of HPC resources. Completed concept papers, derived from the provided template, must be submitted in PDF file format by email to hpc4mtls-submissions@llnl.gov by 11:59 p.m. PDT on April 19, 2018. The subject line should include: HPC4Mtls Concept Submission. Receipt of concept papers will be confirmed within one week of submission. Concept papers will be evaluated against the criteria described below. Full Proposal Guidelines Successful concept paper submissions will be notified and paired with a Principal Investigator (PI) from LLNL, LANL, NETL, ORNL, other participating laboratories, or a combination of these national laboratories, to collaborate on development of a full proposal. Full proposals will be evaluated against the criteria described below. The full proposal template can be downloaded from the web site and should be used to prepare your submission. Proposals should not exceed six (6) single - spaced pages using 12- point font (Times New Roman preferred ), formatted in a PDF file, and must include the following components under the corresponding headings below. Proposals that do not meet the guidelines may be rejected. •· Title Page: (not included in page limit) Project title; company name, description and U.S. manufacturing location(s); company principal investigator(s) (PI) contact information. Include the DOE office and topic area listed above that your concept paper best fits, and the national lab PI contact information. Acknowledge the need to provide 20% cost-share and the agreement to enter into the DOE Model Short Form CRADA. •· Abstract: (150 words or less): Non-proprietary, publishable summary of problem being addressed, why problem is important to the energy future of the US, plan to address problem, and the impact the solution will have on the development of materials in severe environments. If selected for the HPC4Mtls Program, this abstract will appear on award announcements sent to the press. •· Background: Explain the technical challenge to be addressed, the state-of-the-art in materials in this area and how this work advances the state-of-the-art, how solving this problem will meet the goals of the HPC4Mtls Program, the relevant expertise of the industry partners, what national lab expertise is needed, and why national laboratory HPC resources are required and how they will be used. Indicate if the proposed project will accelerate transformational technological advances in areas that industry by itself is not likely to undertake because of technical and financial uncertainty. •· Project Plan and Objectives: Describe the technical scope of work to be performed and how this scope will fit into the broader solution for the challenges being addressed, including, for example, relevant experimental work. Describe a set of tasks to be performed and define what work industry partners will perform and what work laboratory partners will perform. Describe how the results of the project will be validated, including availability of data. If possible, describe specific simulation codes to be used in this effort and any modifications to the software that are needed to solve the proposed problem. •· Tasks, Milestones, Deliverables, and Schedules: Goals, timelines, and due dates throughout the life of project. Not every milestone needs to have a deliverable. Include deliverables from all partners, not just the national lab partner(s). Indicate responsible party(ies) for each deliverable. Include deliverables from one partner to another, as well as those to the DOE program sponsors. •· Impact: Estimate how this effort will result in long-term energy savings across the industry, the performance improvements that are expected over existing materials, cost reductions, materials that exceed performance boundaries of existing materials, materials that provide lower cost alternatives to existing materials, faster development times, or reduced time to market. Be as quantitative as possible. Impact statements should be made relative to existing state-of-the-practice and should focus on the specific improvements realized by the successful application of HPC resources. Metrics include energy improvements, performance increases, cost savings, and/or time reductions. •· Implementation and Adoption: Describe how this work will be incorporated into company and industry-wide operations. Describe the follow-on activities to extend this effort to solve the broader problem being addressed. If a new or modified material is developed, can the team provide a preliminary techno-economic analysis by the close of the project? •· Appendix A: Project Summary of Tasks and Schedule (not included in page count): Provide a summary of the tasks and subtasks in a table format that provides the milestones, deliverables, and schedule. Please also provide a schedule summary in Gantt chart format. •· Appendix B: Project Budget (not included in page count) Summarize project costs including amount and source of participant contribution in the table provided. Indicate in-kind and/or cash contribution for Industry funding. Include a description of how this funding will make a large difference relative to existing funding from other sources, including the private sector and why the government should fund this work. •· Appendix C: Computational Resources (not included in page count): Describe the computational approach, the performance of the codes, and the resources requested (platform and number of core hours). •· Appendix D: Pictures for Publication (not included in page count) : Include one or two non-proprietary pictures/images that can be used in a press release should this project be funded. •· Appendix E: Discussion of how this work benefits the laboratory (not included in page count): Briefly discuss new or enhanced capabilities that will be gained by the partner laboratory. Or explain how this will help to maintain existing laboratory capabilities. •· Appendix F: Resumes (not included in page limit): Include resumes of participants. Completed proposals, derived from the provided template, must be submitted in PDF file format by email to hpc4mtls-submissions@llnl.gov by 11:59 p.m. PDT on the deadline indicated on the submission web site. This date will be approximately six weeks after the concept paper notifications have been issued. The subject line should include: HPC4Mtls Proposal Submission. Receipt of proposals will be confirmed within one week of submission. Evaluation Process and Criteria Both concept papers and full proposals will be evaluated by a Technical Merit Review Committee consisting of experts in the application of HPC modeling, simulation, and data analysis from each of the principal DOE national laboratories, and members of the DOE program offices with knowledge of the U.S. industry. Subject Matter Experts will be consulted to verify claims, including description of current state-of-the-art and estimate of project impact (e.g. cost and energy savings). Concept papers will be evaluated primarily on the technical challenge and potential impact of using HPC to solve the industrial challenge. Concept papers should articulate, to the extent the possible, the technical plan for performing the work. The committee recognizes that those industrial PIs who have not yet identified a national laboratory partner to work with may not have a complete picture of the technical solution techniques that are possible. Full proposals will be evaluated against all of the criteria listed below. Because the industrial partner will have been assigned a laboratory partner to work with to develop the full proposal, the technical plan and feasibility will be expected to be well articulated. In addition, strong evidence of communication and planned collaborations between the national lab and industrial participants is expected in the full proposals. Evaluation Criteria •· Advances the State-of-the-Art in the Industrial Sector : Does the proposed work take materials performance and behavior to a new level in a specific energy application environment; scale up the production of a new or modified material, provide a wholly new capability, or dramatically decrease the time required to certify or qualify a new or modified material? •· Technical feasibility : Does the proposal have a clearly stated technical approach, a description of the software to be used, including any needed modifications, clear roles and responsibilities for the participants (both industrial partner and national laboratory), realistic time frames for each technical step, and, if necessary, validation data available to the team ? •· Relevance to high-performance computing : Does the proposed work fully utilize the unique expertise and capabilities at the DOE national laboratories to solve a problem that could not be solved in any other way? Does it demonstrate the ability to use large fractions of the machine to solve a truly large-scale problem and provide clear estimates of the compute cycles necessary for the work to be performed? •· Impact, including Lifecycle Energy Impact : Does the proposal provide clear, evidence-based improved materials performance, energy savings, or reduced time to market that will have broad (national-scale) industrial impact, as well as impact on employment in the United States? Does the proposal have a clearly stated plan for broad deployment of project artifacts or knowledge gained? •· Project management and team : Does the proposal match team expertise to the problem to be solved; have modeling expertise on both the national laboratory and industry sides, and process experts for the model validation if necessary? Does the proposal clearly state roles and responsibilities for the participants and provide evidence of a strong collaboration between the industrial and national partners through joint milestones and deliverables? Point of Contact During the period of the call for proposals, all questions relating to this announcement should be directed to the HPC4Mtls Program Director at hpc4mtls-submissions@llnl.gov. Answers will be posted on http://hpc4mtls.org/. Industrial partners that are interested in submitting applications should refrain from contacting national laboratory proposal partners during the call for proposals. Intellectual Property and Proprietary Data The HPC4Mtls Program respects the importance of industry's intellectual property and data security. Awardees are expected to enter into a DOE Model Short Form CRADA with the national laboratory or laboratories that will be performing the work. This CRADA contains provisions relating to proprietary information and intellectual property. Because of the need for accelerated placement and execution of the projects, terms of the CRADA will not be subject to negotiation. To review the proposed terms that make up the DOE Model Short Form CRADA, please see the example posted on the HPC4Mtls solicitation website. A Non-Disclosure Agreement can be put into place during development and submission of the proposal to facilitate discussions while protecting the partner's proprietary information. To the extent possible, it is preferred that proprietary information NOT be included in the submitted proposal. If company proprietary information is included in the proposal, the specific information should be marked as such. The HPC4Mtls Program officials will utilize reasonable efforts to treat the information as business sensitive. Significant delays by the industry partner to finalize the CRADA could result in rejection of the proposal.
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