Center of Excellence for Materials Modeling: Approaches to Computer-aided Materials Design

In March 2000, the German Ministry for Education and Research approved a proposal for a new research project intended to run over a period of five years. Its goal is the development of new methods for the computer simulation of modern materials and their transfer into industrial research and development. Materials simulations allow to predict the physical properties of new ceramic and polymeric materials and glasses and to aid a better understanding of these materials.

The Centre of Excellence "Materials Modeling: Approaches to Computer-aided Materials Design" ("Kompetenzzentrum Werkstoffmodellierung: Wege zum computergestützten Materialdesign") is coordinated by the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany. Further collaborators are research groups at the physics departments of the universities of Mainz and Heidelberg, at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, and at the Research Laboratory Jülich.

Over the fife-years period, the centre is supported by the Ministry by means of a budget of DM 5 millions. The transfer of technology into industry is to be achieved by industrial cooperations of the participating research groups. For that purpose, the industrial partners provide another DM 5 millions to support the collaboration.

At present these industrial partners are Bayer AG, BASF AG, Glaswerke Schott, and the dutch DSM b.v. The centre is open to welcome further industrial partners, in mutual agreement with the already participating industrial enterprises.

The goals of the Center of Excellence for Materials Modeling are

• the development of new approaches to materials simulation,
  
• the design of software for that purpose,
  
• its application to problems of technological relevance,
  
• and the transfer of the acquired knowledge into industrial research.

This is to be achieved by

• bilateral cooperations between groups of the participating research institutes and industrial enterprises,
  
• by developing a method pool of in principle general applicability,
  
• by information exchange during meetings of the involved collaborators,
  
• and by means of workshops and conferences with external guests.