Events

(AEFM Division) Nonlinear shape manifold learning with applications to shape optimization and materials science

Date: Wednesday 14 February 2018 15:30 - 16:30

Location: Queens. W206

Abstract.
We present the concept of a “shape manifold” designed for reduced order representation of complex “shapes” encountered in mechanical problems, such as design optimization, springback or image correlation. The overall idea is to define the shape space within which evolves the boundary of the structure. The reduced representation is obtained by means of determining the intrinsic dimensionality of the problem, independently of the original design parameters, and by approximating a hyper surface, i.e. a shape manifold, connecting all admissible shapes represented using level set functions. Also, an optimal parameterization may be obtained for arbitrary shapes, where the parameters have to be defined a posteriori. We also developed the predictor-corrector optimization manifold walking algorithms in a reduced shape space that guarantee the admissibility of the solution with no additional constraints. We illustrate the approach on three diverse examples drawn from the field of computational mechanics.

Bio.
Balaji Raghavan is a tenured Associate Professor of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the Institut National des Sciences Appliquees (INSA) at Rennes in France. He conducts his research in the field of multi-scale modeling and simulation for the multi-physics characterization of materials in the Géomatériaux et Ouvrages Sous Actions compleXes (GEOSAX) research group of the Laboratoire de Genie Civil et Genie Mecanique (LGCGM EA 3913). He has obtained his Master of Sciences in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in High Performance Computing from the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), PA, USA and his PhD in Advanced Mechanics from the Universite de Technologie de Compiegne (UTC) in Compiegne, France. He is currently involved in research collaborations with the Narodowe Centrum Badan Jadrowych (NCBJ) in swierk Poland National Polytechnical University in Xi'an, China and UTC, France. He currently serves as scientific reviewer for various international journals and has himself authored/co-authored over 50 peer reviewed journal articles and referenced conference papers.