MMAE Seminar by Dr. Reza Djeddi – Enabling Techniques for the Next Generation of Multidisciplinary Computational Design and Analysis

Armour College of Engineering’s Department of Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering will welcome Dr. Reza Djeddi, a research assistant professor and lecturer in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to present a lecture, “Enabling Techniques for the Next Generation of Multidisciplinary Computational Design and Analysis.”

The virtual seminar will take place on Thursday, February 3rd, 2022, from 12:45–1:45 p.m.

Contact Elena Magnus at magnus@iit.edu for the seminar details and a link to join.

Abstract
Due to the advancements made in computing technology during the past couple of decades, “Computational Design” has become a widely-used tool, enabling the engineers and scientists to design state-of-the-art technologies and configurations that can improve performance, reduce costs, and maximize energy efficiency, to name a few. In particular, for the aeromechanical and aero-thermo-elastic applications, the computational design relies heavily on the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Computational Structural Dynamics (CSD) analyses. Therefore, extremely robust CFD/CSD simulation frameworks are required to drive and accelerate the design process. On the other hand, for high-fidelity optimization and design studies, it is useful to know the gradient (also called the sensitivity) of a set of global quantities with respect to many input design variables. The computed sensitivity information can then be used to step towards an optimum design that can achieve the desired objectives. In recent years, the “adjoint method” has gained a lot of traction and is being used for determining the sensitivity of an objective function to a set of design variables. Among many other areas, adjoint-based methods have been used in design and topology optimization, uncertainty quantification (UQ), validation and verification (V&V), error estimation, and adaptive mesh refinement. However, despite many years of development and advances made in adjoint techniques, there are still challenges that hinder their more widespread use due to significant effort needed for code development, cumbersome debugging process, large memory footprint, and high computational cost. In this talk, a set of enabling techniques for computational design are introduced that have advanced the state-of-the-art in CFD and design optimization. Such transformative leaps forward would greatly reduce the time and cost of computational design in many engineering applications.

Biography
Dr. Reza Djeddi is a research assistant professor and lecturer in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is a senior member of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) research team where his primary research focus is the development of advanced and computationally efficient tools for adjoint-based sensitivity analysis, CFD-based transonic to supersonic fluid flow simulation, and aerodynamic/aeroelastic design optimization. Reza holds a PhD in mechanical engineering (UT-Knoxville), a MSc in aerospace engineering (UT-Knoxville), as well as a MSc in mechanical engineering (Sharif University of Technology). He has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers in reputed journals and international conferences and has an invention disclosure for a novel automatic differentiation (AD) toolbox. Dr. Djeddi is a member of the Sigma Xi scientific research society, Phi Kappa Phi honor society, and American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). In addition, he is a professional member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) where he also serves on the Applied Aerodynamics (APA) technical committee and the education subcommittee.