Modeling & Simulation

Delivering innovative, impactful modeling and simulation solutions in a variety of scientific areas.

Modeling and simulation are critical elements of discovery science. Simulations help us better understand our physical world, especially phenomena that cannot be understood using observation or experiment alone. These systems may be very big (structure formation of our universe) or very small (quantum chemistry, microelectronics design), very fast (particle physics) or very slow (climate change and stellar evolution). By shedding light on the underlying mechanisms of a system, simulations also allow researchers to predict how they will behave in the future.

At Berkeley Lab, we develop state-of-the-art methodologies and techniques to understand and predict continuous (measurable) and discrete (countable) parts of a physical system – like a hurricane or traffic flow – and its dynamic behavior. We work to ensure that the mathematical characteristics of our models are accurate so that researchers can trust the results. Many of our models and simulations can run on computers at all scales, from laptops to modern supercomputers.

Our mathematicians, computational scientists, and data scientists partner with researchers from various disciplines to model complex systems like the intricate dynamics of commercial spray painting, wind farms, transportation networks, computer hardware, fluid flows, and much more.