Modeling & Simulation
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) develops and integrates leading-edge science and technology, and rapidly translates scientific discoveries into solutions for challenges in energy, national security, and the environment by integrating the chemical, physical, biological and computational sciences.
PNNL innovations in simulation and modeling have resulted in the development of tools for reliable climate change predictions, understanding the molecular processes that provide the mechanism for cells and organisms to adjust to changing conditions, reliable computational chemistry predictions of the structures, energetics, and reactions of molecules, and systematic approaches to designing innovative materials for tomorrow's products.
A diverse set of organizations and individuals at PNNL are involved with modeling and simulation research and development across the Laboratory. This gateway website provides contacts and two major pathways for exploring the modeling and simulation activities at PNNL: the seven Science Domains and the four primary Application Areas listed to the left. The primary application areas include more specific subareas representing different types of modeling and simulation. Several subareas could fall into more than one primary application area but are restricted here to a single primary area.
Modeling & Simulation, defined:
Modeling is the development of an analytical structure to represent a complex system in order that the behavior of the system can be imitated and predicted.
Simulation is the employment of computational processes to implement a model representation of the essential features of the behavior of a system.