- 01Reads project dataStages, timesheets, costs, tests and documents recorded in Paylists.
- 02Searches published workOpenAlex, Europe PMC, PubMed, arXiv, Crossref, OSTI, NASA NTRS, NIST and other sources.
- 03Recommends answersEach answer is supported by references for your team and R&D tax advisor to review.
What the R&D aim of the project is
Lister recommended answerTo develop an engineering model that remains sufficiently predictive outside the experimental data used to calibrate it.
Scientific or technological uncertainty
- 01
Describe exactly which uncertainties you need to resolve
Lister recommended answerWhether uncertain material properties, boundary conditions, model assumptions, numerical approximations and measurement error can be controlled sufficiently to achieve the required predictive accuracy.
- 02
Describe what made it a project to resolve a specified uncertainty
Lister recommended answerSimulation methods existed, but a calibrated model does not necessarily remain predictive under new operating conditions.
- 03
Describe the steps you plan to take to resolve them
Lister recommended answerDevelop model variants, quantify parameter uncertainty, calibrate against one dataset and independently validate against unseen physical experiments.
- 04
What difficulties are foreseen for the project
Lister recommended answerSeveral combinations of parameters may reproduce calibration data while producing different predictions outside the calibration envelope.
- 05
Information about any major changes to the aims, or new uncertainties that have been encountered, while running the project.
Lister recommended answerValidation may reveal model-form error that cannot be solved by recalibrating parameters and requires changing the underlying model structure.
- 06
How the uncertainties and other challenges were overcome (or not).
Lister recommended answerAlternative model formulations would be tested, followed by a frozen independent validation.
An advance in science or technology
- 01
A review of the current state of knowledge
Lister recommended answerNIST research had documented substantial uncertainty arising from model form, unknown parameters and measurement error in manufacturing simulation.
- 02
How the project sought an advance in a qualifying area of science or technology
Lister recommended answerThe project sought validated predictive capability rather than a simulation that merely fits known data.
Result, conclusion and evidence
Result
The final model met the prediction-error requirement across the defined validation envelope.
Conclusion
The advance must be assessed from independent predictive performance, not calibration fit.
Evidence still needed
Model versions, calibration data, validation data, measurement uncertainty, parameter distributions and sensitivity analyses.
Supporting references
NIST — Identifying uncertainty in LPBF models.
nist.gov ↗NIST — review of model inaccuracy and parameter uncertainty.
nist.gov ↗NIST — quantifying uncertainty in LPBF models.
nist.gov ↗