Showing 1–12 of 12 results for author: Mathew, N

Active Learning of A Crystal Plasticity Flow Rule From Discrete Dislocation Dynamics Simulations

Authors: Nicholas Huebner Julian, Giacomo Po, Enrique Martinez, Nithin Mathew, Danny Perez

Abstract: Continuum-scale material deformation models, such as crystal plasticity, can significantly enhance their predictive accuracy by incorporating input from lower-scale (i.e., mesoscale) models. The procedure to generate and extract the relevant information is however typically complex and ad hoc, involving decision and intervention by domain experts, leading to long development times. In this study,… ▽ More Continuum-scale material deformation models, such as crystal plasticity, can significantly enhance their predictive accuracy by incorporating input from lower-scale (i.e., mesoscale) models. The procedure to generate and extract the relevant information is however typically complex and ad hoc, involving decision and intervention by domain experts, leading to long development times. In this study, we develop a principled approach for calibration of continuum-scale models using lower scale information by representing a crystal plasticity flow rule as a Gaussian process model. This representation allows for efficient parameter space exploration, guided by the uncertainty embedded in the model through a process known as Bayesian optimization. We demonstrate a semi-autonomous Bayesian optimization loop which instantiates discrete dislocation dynamics simulations whose initial conditions are automatically chosen to optimize the uncertainty of a model crystal plasticity flow rule. Our self-guided computational pipeline efficiently generated a dataset and corresponding model whose error, uncertainty, and physical feature sensitivities were validated with comparison to an independent dataset four times larger, demonstrating a valuable and efficient active learning implementation readily transferable to similar material systems. △ Less

Submitted 3 January, 2026; v1 submitted 4 September, 2025; originally announced September 2025.

Journal ref: Modelling Simul. Mater. Sci. Eng. 34 015016 (2026)

Simulations of grain growth in tungsten armor materials under ARC plasma edge operation conditions using an integrated plasma-edge/materials model

Authors: Jinxin Yu, Nithin Mathew, Sophie Blondel, Ane Lasa, Jon Hillesheim, Lauren Garrison, Brian D. Wirth, Jaime Mariana

Abstract: An integrated model of grain growth deuterium-exposed tungsten polycrystals, consisting of a two-dimensional vertex dynamics model fitted to atomistic data, has been developed to assess the grain growth kinetics of deuterium-exposed polycrystalline tungsten (W). The model tracks the motion of grain boundaries under the effect of driving forces stemming from grain boundary curvature and differentia… ▽ More An integrated model of grain growth deuterium-exposed tungsten polycrystals, consisting of a two-dimensional vertex dynamics model fitted to atomistic data, has been developed to assess the grain growth kinetics of deuterium-exposed polycrystalline tungsten (W). The model tracks the motion of grain boundaries under the effect of driving forces stemming from grain boundary curvature and differential deuterium concentration accumulation. We apply the model to experimentally-synthesized W polycrystals under deuterium saturated conditions consistent with those of the ARC concept design, and find fast grain growth kinetics in the material region adjacent to the plasma (at 1400 K, <100 seconds for full transformation), while the microstructure is stable deep inside the material (several days to complete at a temperature of 1000 K). Our simulations suggest that monolithic W fabricated using conventional techniques will be highly susceptible to grain growth in the presence of any driving force at temperatures above 1000 K. △ Less

Submitted 30 August, 2025; originally announced September 2025.

Comments: 21 pages, 12 figures

Phase field dislocation dynamics formulation coupled with Fourier based micromechanics solver and its application to grain boundary-dislocation interactions

Authors: Brayan Murgas, Avanish Mishra, Nithin Mathew, Abigail Hunter

Abstract: A new phase field dislocation dynamics formulation is presented, which couples micromechanical solvers and the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation. Grain boundary (GB)-dislocation interactions are studied by describing GBs as inclusions. Grain boundary properties are computed from Molecular Statics simulations and an additional contribution to the total energy that takes into account the GB en… ▽ More A new phase field dislocation dynamics formulation is presented, which couples micromechanical solvers and the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation. Grain boundary (GB)-dislocation interactions are studied by describing GBs as inclusions. Grain boundary properties are computed from Molecular Statics simulations and an additional contribution to the total energy that takes into account the GB energy is considered in the calculations. Interaction of a screw dislocation with minimum energy and metastable states of low and high angle $\langle$110$\rangle$ symmetric tilt grain boundaries are studied. We show good agreement between predictions from our phase field dislocation dynamics formulation and molecular dynamics simulations of grain boundary-dislocation interactions. △ Less

Submitted 18 February, 2026; v1 submitted 30 June, 2025; originally announced July 2025.

Comments: Main text 37 pages, entire text 58 pages

Report number: LA-UR-25-26159 Version 3

Describe, Transform, Machine Learning: Feature Engineering for Grain Boundaries and Other Variable-Sized Atom Clusters

Authors: C. Braxton Owens, Nithin Mathew, Tyce W. Olaveson, Jacob P. Tavenner, Edward M. Kober, Garritt J. Tucker, Gus L. W. Hart, Eric R. Homer

Abstract: Obtaining microscopic structure-property relationships for grain boundaries are challenging because of the complex atomic structures that underlie their behavior. This has led to recent efforts to obtain these relationships with machine learning, but representing a grain boundary structure in a manner suitable for machine learning is not a trivial task. There are three key steps common to property… ▽ More Obtaining microscopic structure-property relationships for grain boundaries are challenging because of the complex atomic structures that underlie their behavior. This has led to recent efforts to obtain these relationships with machine learning, but representing a grain boundary structure in a manner suitable for machine learning is not a trivial task. There are three key steps common to property prediction in grain boundaries and other variable-sized atom clustered structures. These are: (1) describe the atomic structure as a feature matrix, (2) transform the variable-sized feature matrices of different structures to a fixed length common to all structures, and (3) apply machine learning to predict properties from the transformed feature matrices. We examine these feature engineering steps to understand how they impact the accuracy of grain boundary energy predictions. A database of over 7000 grain boundaries serves to evaluate the different feature engineering combinations. We also examine how these combination of engineered features provide interpretability, or the ability to extract insightful physics from the obtained structure-property relationships. △ Less

Submitted 30 July, 2024; originally announced July 2024.

Comments: 18 pages, 8 figures

Journal ref: npj Computational Materials, vol. 11, art. no. 21, 2025

Learning from metastable grain boundaries

Authors: Avanish Mishra, Sumit A. Suresh, Saryu J. Fensin, Nithin Mathew, Edward M. Kober

Abstract: Grain boundaries (GBs) govern critical properties of polycrystals. Although significant advancements have been made in characterizing minimum energy GBs, real GBs are seldom found in such states, making it challenging to establish structure-property relationships. This diversity of atomic arrangements in metastable states motivates using data-driven methods to establish these relationships. In thi… ▽ More Grain boundaries (GBs) govern critical properties of polycrystals. Although significant advancements have been made in characterizing minimum energy GBs, real GBs are seldom found in such states, making it challenging to establish structure-property relationships. This diversity of atomic arrangements in metastable states motivates using data-driven methods to establish these relationships. In this study, we utilize a vast atomistic database (~5000) of minimum energy and metastable states of symmetric tilt copper GBs, combined with physically-motivated local atomic environment (LAE) descriptors (Strain Functional Descriptors, SFDs) to predict GB properties. Our regression models exhibit robust predictive capabilities using only 19 descriptors, generalizing to atomic environments in nanocrystals. A significant highlight of our work is integration of an unsupervised method with SFDs to elucidate LAEs at GBs and their role in determining properties. Our research underscores the role of a physics-based representation of LAEs and efficacy of data-driven methods in establishing GB structure-property relationships. △ Less

Submitted 31 May, 2024; originally announced June 2024.

Effect of helium bubbles on the mobility of edge dislocations in copper

Authors: Minh Tam Hoang, Nithin Mathew, Daniel N. Blaschke, Saryu Fensin

Abstract: Helium bubbles can form in materials upon exposure to irradiation. It is well known that the presence of helium bubbles can cause changes in the mechanical behavior of materials. To improve the lifetime of nuclear components, it is important to understand deformation mechanisms in helium-containing materials. In this work, we investigate the interactions between edge dislocations and helium bubble… ▽ More Helium bubbles can form in materials upon exposure to irradiation. It is well known that the presence of helium bubbles can cause changes in the mechanical behavior of materials. To improve the lifetime of nuclear components, it is important to understand deformation mechanisms in helium-containing materials. In this work, we investigate the interactions between edge dislocations and helium bubbles in copper using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We focus on the effect of helium bubble pressure (equivalently, the helium-to-vacancy ratio) on the obstacle strength of helium bubbles and their interaction with dislocations. Our simulations predict significant differences in the interaction mechanisms as a function of helium bubble pressure. Specifically, bubbles with high internal pressure are found to exhibit weaker obstacle strength as compared to low-pressure bubbles of the same size due to the formation of super-jogs in the dislocation. Activation energies and rate constants extracted from the MD data confirm this transition in mechanism and enable upscaling of these phenomena to higher length-scale models. △ Less

Submitted 3 September, 2024; v1 submitted 14 May, 2024; originally announced May 2024.

Comments: 9 pages, 10 figures; v2+v3 minor revision

Report number: LA-UR-24-24506

Journal ref: Mod. Simul. Mater. Sci. Eng. 32 (2024) 075011

The structure and migration of heavily irradiated grain boundaries and dislocations in Ni in the athermal limit

Authors: Ian Chesser, Peter M. Derlet, Avanish Mishra, Sarah Paguaga, Nithin Mathew, Khanh Dang, Blas Pedro Uberuaga, Abigail Hunter, Saryu Fensin

Abstract: The microstructural evolution at and near pre-existing grain boundaries (GBs) and dislocations in materials under high radiation doses is still poorly understood. In this work, we use the creation relaxation algorithm (CRA) developed for atomistic modeling of high-dose irradiation in bulk materials to probe the athermal limit of saturation of GB and dislocation core regions under irradiation in FC… ▽ More The microstructural evolution at and near pre-existing grain boundaries (GBs) and dislocations in materials under high radiation doses is still poorly understood. In this work, we use the creation relaxation algorithm (CRA) developed for atomistic modeling of high-dose irradiation in bulk materials to probe the athermal limit of saturation of GB and dislocation core regions under irradiation in FCC Ni. We find that, upon continuously subjecting a single dislocation or GB to Frenkel pair creation in the athermal limit, a local steady state disordered defect structure is reached with excess properties that fluctuate around constant values. Case studies are given for a straight screw dislocation which elongates into a helix under irradiation and several types of low and high angle GBs, which exhibit coupled responses such as absorption of extrinsic dislocations, roughening and migration. A positive correlation is found between initial GB energy and the local steady state GB energy under irradiation across a wide variety of GB types. Metastable GB structures with similar density in the defect core region but different initial configurations are found to converge to the same limiting structure under CRA. The mechanical responses of pristine and irradiated dislocations and GB structures are compared under an applied shear stress. Irradiated screw and edge dislocations are found to exhibit a hardening response, migrating at larger flow stresses than their pristine counterparts. Mobile GBs are found to exhibit softening or hardening responses depending on GB character. Although some GBs recover their initial pristine structures upon migration outside of the radiation zone, many GBs sustain different flow stresses corresponding to altered mobile core structures. △ Less

Submitted 7 May, 2024; originally announced May 2024.

Data-Driven Modeling of Dislocation Mobility from Atomistics using Physics-Informed Machine Learning

Authors: Yifeng Tian, Soumendu Bagchi, Liam Myhill, Giacomo Po, Enrique Martinez, Yen Ting Lin, Nithin Mathew, Danny Perez

Abstract: Dislocation mobility, which dictates the response of dislocations to an applied stress, is a fundamental property of crystalline materials that governs the evolution of plastic deformation. Traditional approaches for deriving mobility laws rely on phenomenological models of the underlying physics, whose free parameters are in turn fitted to a small number of intuition-driven atomic scale simulatio… ▽ More Dislocation mobility, which dictates the response of dislocations to an applied stress, is a fundamental property of crystalline materials that governs the evolution of plastic deformation. Traditional approaches for deriving mobility laws rely on phenomenological models of the underlying physics, whose free parameters are in turn fitted to a small number of intuition-driven atomic scale simulations under varying conditions of temperature and stress. This tedious and time-consuming approach becomes particularly cumbersome for materials with complex dependencies on stress, temperature, and local environment, such as body-centered cubic crystals (BCC) metals and alloys. In this paper, we present a novel, uncertainty quantification-driven active learning paradigm for learning dislocation mobility laws from automated high-throughput large-scale molecular dynamics simulations, using Graph Neural Networks (GNN) with a physics-informed architecture. We demonstrate that this Physics-informed Graph Neural Network (PI-GNN) framework captures the underlying physics more accurately compared to existing phenomenological mobility laws in BCC metals. △ Less

Submitted 20 March, 2024; originally announced March 2024.

Strain Functionals: A Complete and Symmetry-adapted Set of Descriptors to Characterize Atomistic Configurations

Authors: Edward M. Kober, Jacob P. Tavenner, Colin M. Adams, Nithin Mathew

Abstract: Extracting relevant information from atomistic simulations relies on a complete and accurate characterization of atomistic configurations. We present a framework for characterizing atomistic configurations in terms of a complete and symmetry-adapted basis, referred to as strain functionals. In this approach a Gaussian kernel is used to map discrete atomic quantities, such as number density, veloci… ▽ More Extracting relevant information from atomistic simulations relies on a complete and accurate characterization of atomistic configurations. We present a framework for characterizing atomistic configurations in terms of a complete and symmetry-adapted basis, referred to as strain functionals. In this approach a Gaussian kernel is used to map discrete atomic quantities, such as number density, velocities, and forces, to continuous fields. The local atomic configurations are then characterized using nth order central moments of the local number density. The initial Cartesian moments are recast unitarily into a Solid Harmonic Polynomial basis using SO(3) decompositions. Rotationally invariant metrics, referred to as Strain Functional Descriptors (SFDs), are constructed from the terms in the SO(3) decomposition using Clebsch-Gordan coupling. A key distinction compared to related methods is that a minimal but complete set of descriptors is identified. These descriptors characterize the local geometries numerically in terms of shape, size, and orientation descriptors that recognize n-fold symmetry axes and net shapes such as trigonal, cubic, hexagonal, etc. They can easily distinguish between most different crystal symmetries using n = 4, identify defects (such as dislocations and stacking faults), measure local deformation, and can be used in conjunction with machine learning techniques for in situ analysis of finite temperature atomistic simulation data and quantification of defect dynamics. △ Less

Submitted 6 February, 2024; originally announced February 2024.

JARVIS-Leaderboard: A Large Scale Benchmark of Materials Design Methods

Authors: Kamal Choudhary, Daniel Wines, Kangming Li, Kevin F. Garrity, Vishu Gupta, Aldo H. Romero, Jaron T. Krogel, Kayahan Saritas, Addis Fuhr, Panchapakesan Ganesh, Paul R. C. Kent, Keqiang Yan, Yuchao Lin, Shuiwang Ji, Ben Blaiszik, Patrick Reiser, Pascal Friederich, Ankit Agrawal, Pratyush Tiwary, Eric Beyerle, Peter Minch, Trevor David Rhone, Ichiro Takeuchi, Robert B. Wexler, Arun Mannodi-Kanakkithodi , et al. (13 additional authors not shown)

Abstract: Lack of rigorous reproducibility and validation are major hurdles for scientific development across many fields. Materials science in particular encompasses a variety of experimental and theoretical approaches that require careful benchmarking. Leaderboard efforts have been developed previously to mitigate these issues. However, a comprehensive comparison and benchmarking on an integrated platform… ▽ More Lack of rigorous reproducibility and validation are major hurdles for scientific development across many fields. Materials science in particular encompasses a variety of experimental and theoretical approaches that require careful benchmarking. Leaderboard efforts have been developed previously to mitigate these issues. However, a comprehensive comparison and benchmarking on an integrated platform with multiple data modalities with both perfect and defect materials data is still lacking. This work introduces JARVIS-Leaderboard, an open-source and community-driven platform that facilitates benchmarking and enhances reproducibility. The platform allows users to set up benchmarks with custom tasks and enables contributions in the form of dataset, code, and meta-data submissions. We cover the following materials design categories: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Electronic Structure (ES), Force-fields (FF), Quantum Computation (QC) and Experiments (EXP). For AI, we cover several types of input data, including atomic structures, atomistic images, spectra, and text. For ES, we consider multiple ES approaches, software packages, pseudopotentials, materials, and properties, comparing results to experiment. For FF, we compare multiple approaches for material property predictions. For QC, we benchmark Hamiltonian simulations using various quantum algorithms and circuits. Finally, for experiments, we use the inter-laboratory approach to establish benchmarks. There are 1281 contributions to 274 benchmarks using 152 methods with more than 8 million data-points, and the leaderboard is continuously expanding. The JARVIS-Leaderboard is available at the website: https://pages.nist.gov/jarvis_leaderboard △ Less

Submitted 26 March, 2024; v1 submitted 20 June, 2023; originally announced June 2023.

Automated discovery of a robust interatomic potential for aluminum

Authors: Justin S. Smith, Benjamin Nebgen, Nithin Mathew, Jie Chen, Nicholas Lubbers, Leonid Burakovsky, Sergei Tretiak, Hai Ah Nam, Timothy Germann, Saryu Fensin, Kipton Barros

Abstract: Accuracy of molecular dynamics simulations depends crucially on the interatomic potential used to generate forces. The gold standard would be first-principles quantum mechanics (QM) calculations, but these become prohibitively expensive at large simulation scales. Machine learning (ML) based potentials aim for faithful emulation of QM at drastically reduced computational cost. The accuracy and rob… ▽ More Accuracy of molecular dynamics simulations depends crucially on the interatomic potential used to generate forces. The gold standard would be first-principles quantum mechanics (QM) calculations, but these become prohibitively expensive at large simulation scales. Machine learning (ML) based potentials aim for faithful emulation of QM at drastically reduced computational cost. The accuracy and robustness of an ML potential is primarily limited by the quality and diversity of the training dataset. Using the principles of active learning (AL), we present a highly automated approach to dataset construction. The strategy is to use the ML potential under development to sample new atomic configurations and, whenever a configuration is reached for which the ML uncertainty is sufficiently large, collect new QM data. Here, we seek to push the limits of automation, removing as much expert knowledge from the AL process as possible. All sampling is performed using MD simulations starting from an initially disordered configuration, and undergoing non-equilibrium dynamics as driven by time-varying applied temperatures. We demonstrate this approach by building an ML potential for aluminum (ANI-Al). After many AL iterations, ANI-Al teaches itself to predict properties like the radial distribution function in melt, liquid-solid coexistence curve, and crystal properties such as defect energies and barriers. To demonstrate transferability, we perform a 1.3M atom shock simulation, and show that ANI-Al predictions agree very well with DFT calculations on local atomic environments sampled from the nonequilibrium dynamics. Interestingly, the configurations appearing in shock appear to have been well sampled in the AL training dataset, in a way that we illustrate visually. △ Less

Submitted 24 August, 2020; v1 submitted 10 March, 2020; originally announced March 2020.

A 3D phase field dislocation dynamics model for body-centered cubic crystals

Authors: Xiaoyao Peng, Nithin Mathew, Irene J. Beyerlein, Kaushik Dayal, Abigail Hunter

Abstract: In this work, we present a 3D Phase Field Dislocation Dynamics (PFDD) model for body-centered cubic (BCC) metals. The model formulation is extended to account for the dependence of the Peierls barrier on the line-character of the dislocation. Simulations of the expansion of a dislocation loop belonging to the $\left\{110\right\} \left<111\right>$ slip system are presented with direct comparison to… ▽ More In this work, we present a 3D Phase Field Dislocation Dynamics (PFDD) model for body-centered cubic (BCC) metals. The model formulation is extended to account for the dependence of the Peierls barrier on the line-character of the dislocation. Simulations of the expansion of a dislocation loop belonging to the $\left\{110\right\} \left<111\right>$ slip system are presented with direct comparison to Molecular Statics (MS) simulations. The extended PFDD model is able to capture the salient features of dislocation loop expansion predicted by MS simulations. The model is also applied to simulate the motion of a straight screw dislocation through kink-pair motion. △ Less

Submitted 22 September, 2019; originally announced September 2019.

Journal ref: Comp. Mater. Sci., 171:109217, 2020