The leader of a UW-Madison research project getting $25 million in federal funding says the effort will offer scientists “unprecedented capabilities” to design and test advanced materials.
The National Science Foundation yesterday released details for two new Materials Innovation Platforms, splitting $50 million in total funding over a six-year period. In addition to the Wisconsin project, a robotics-focused effort at Texas A&M University is getting funded through the federal program, which seeks to establish facilities with specialized equipment and technologies.
Prof. Izabela Szlufarska, an engineer and materials scientist at UW-Madison, is the principal investigator for the MATRIX-MIP project in Wisconsin and will lead the new center. The acronym stands for Materials AI and Transformation through Research Infrastructure for eXtreme environments.
Szlufarska says engineering new materials can involve understanding complexities at various scales, from the atomic level to large structures.
“The challenge is understanding how to tailor these complexities to move beyond the current limits of materials performance,” she said in a project overview from the university. “This facility will give researchers unprecedented capabilities to design, create and evaluate those materials.”
Researchers at the center will explore how various material factors influence how they function under extreme conditions, including radiation, mechanical stress, corrosive environments and high temperatures. The team will use AI to “rapidly predict” the properties of new materials before creating samples and testing their physical performance.
Along with “AI-enabled knowledge tools,” workforce development, data sharing and open user access, the project aims to boost national capacity for advanced materials development and converting scientific advances into societal benefits. The facility plans to open in early 2028 and become fully operational by 2030.
Meanwhile, the UW-Madison College of Engineering plans to launch the new Hard Materials Lab as part of the effort.
The project is slated to begin Sept. 1 and estimated to run through August of 2032, with a total intended award amount of $24.9 million. To date, $4 million in funding has been provided for MATRIX-MIP, the NSF project page shows.
