Mechanical Engineering: Stewart Harris Seminar Series

James M. Chen, PhD

Associate Professor, 
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University at Buffalo

Abstract:

Recent technology development for high-speedaerospaceapplicationshasposedseveral challenges forfluids and solids. This seminar showcases a gallery of the speaker’s multiscale study for application under high-speed flight, including the intrinsic angular momentum coupled with linear momentum for high-speed flows and a manufacturing-driven integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) framework with a four-way thermo-mechanical fracture model for ceramic materials. The couplingbetweenthe intrinsicangular momentum andthe hydrodynamic linear momentum has been known to be prominent in fluidflows involvingphysicsacross multiple length and time scales, e.g. turbulence, nonequilibrium flows and flows at micro-/nano-scale. One of the proposed efforts is the morphing continuum theory (MCT), reformulated by the speaker through kinetic theory and the Boltzmann-Curtiss formulations. The multiscale nature of MCT allows one to observe the separate routes of energy transfer during the cascade phenomena. Several cases, including homogeneous isotropic turbulence, supersonic turbulence over a compression ramp and flows with translational nonequilibrium, will be presented. The second part of the talk will discuss an uncertainty informed ICME framework for ceramics. The experimentally validated framework is formulated from few known manufacturing processes, e.g. direct ink writing and chemical vapor infiltration, and extends to performance analysis with a four-way coupling algorithm through numerical simulations. The speaker will alsodiscuss data-driven tools with Bayesian statistics and artificial neural network (ANN) for data sustainability. The speaker will demonstrate the modified G-criterion, Bayesian updated flexure strength with managed uncertainty.

Bio:

Dr. James M. Chen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at University at Buffalo (UB). He earned his Ph.D. in mechanical and aerospace engineering with a minor in applied mathematics at The George  Washington University (2011). He has published 50+ peer-reviewed journal articles in multiscale computational mechanics, theoretical & computational fluid dynamics and atomistic simulation for thermo-electro-mechanical coupling. He received the Young Investigator Award from AFOSR in 2017, the Outstanding Young Engineer Award from the Wichita Council of Engineering Societies in 2018 and the Rising Star Award from the Electrostatics Society of America in 2021. His research at MCPL has been supported by DoD, DoE, NSF and NASA and recognized by numerous media outlets, including a feature article in Aerospace Testing International (UK), and a radio show in Austria. Recently, his research team at MCPL won the Who’s Who competition by ASME FEDSM in 2024. His current interests are on integrated computational materials engineering, machine learning, high speed aerodynamics, high temperature ceramics matrix composite, uncertainty quantification and data science. He is a Fellow of ASME and an Associate Fellow of AIAA.

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