Practical Multiscaling

Jacob Fish

Abstract: The talk presents a practical multiscale-multiphysics design system, which integrates reduced order multiphysics-multiscale analysis; capabilities for life prediction and durability of composite structural components within a nonintrusive stochastic multiscale framework for uncertainty quantification and propagation at multiple scales. The stochastic multiscale-multiphysics design system has been successfully deployed in aerospace industry (Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, Boeing, Rolls-Royce, General Electric) for fatigue life prediction and environmental degradation of high temperature CMC and PMC components as well as in automotive industry (General Motors, Automotive Composites Consortium) for crash prediction of composite cars. The talk includes theory, applications and software demonstrations.  The case is made for a widespread adoption of multiscale methods in practice. We show that it is feasible to reliable predict the behavior of large-scale heterogeneous structural systems well into post-failure regime by accounting for fine-scale material details at a computational cost comparable to the phenomenological modeling of heterogeneous materials.

Biography: Over the past 30 years (in both industry and academia) Dr. Fish (55) has been in the forefront of multiscale computational science and engineering.  He has an accomplished track record of technology transfer to industry. His multiscale methodologies have been employed by industry for manufacturing processes of GE90 fan blades; design of turbo-engines for General Electric and Rolls-Royce; simulation of aerospace structural components for Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman and Sikorski; optimization of energy absorption mechanism for lightweight composite cars manufactured by Ford, GM and Chrysler; predicting environmental degradation of polyimide-based composites in collaboration with Boeing, GE Aviation and Renegade Materials;  analysis of concrete targets subjected to impact loading by high speed projectiles; design of piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials; and numerous nanotechnology applications including nanodevices and nanocomposites sponsored by Northrop-Grumman, Sandia National Laboratory, Army Research Laboratory and Department of Energy.

Dr. Fish, the Carleton Professor of Engineering at Columbia University, is a recipient of the 2010 Computational Mechanics award from the International Association for Computational Mechanics (IACM) and the 2005 Computational Structural Mechanics award from the US Association for Computational Mechanics (USACM).  He is Past President of the United States Association for Computational Mechanics (USACM).  Dr. Fish is a Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Multiscale Computational Engineering and Associate Editor of the International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering. He received his PhD from Northwestern University in 1989 after spending five years in aerospace industry and structural design. More information about Dr. Fish can be found at http://civil.columbia.edu/jacob-fish.