Structural Design and Optimization

Composite materials are commonly used in aerospace structures, and there is a growing interest in understanding how aerospace components made using composite materials behave under various loading. MIAE are leaders in composite manufacturing processes of aerospace structures, incorporating design optimization to increase the structural and vibrational performance of the components. A particular novelty is the use of recycled composites materials in structural components. Researchers are also exploring ways in which machine learning techniques can be incorporated into the industrial automation process, and developing multidisciplinary design optimization methodologies of complex aerospace systems.

Associated Academic Faculty


Larry Lessard• Department of Mechanical Engineering

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Recent Research Publications

  • Estakhrianhaghighi, Ehsan & Mirabolghasemi, Armin & Lessard, Larry & Akbarzadeh, Abdolhamid. (2023). 3D Printed Wood-fiber Reinforced Architected Cellular Composite Beams with Engineered Flexural Properties. Additive Manufacturing. 78. 103800. link to article
  • Chabot, Olivier & Lessard, Larry & Dubé, Martine. (2022). A novel flax fibre composite material for stringed instrument fingerboards. Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites. 41. 073168442110675. link to article
  • Rahmati, Arash & Heidari-Rarani, Mohammad & Lessard, Larry. (2021). A novel conservative failure model for the fused deposition modeling of polylactic acid specimens. Additive Manufacturing. 48. 102460. link to article
  • Taheri, Sareh & Bao, Guangyu & He, Zixin & Mohammadi, Sepideh & Ravanbakhsh, Hossein & Lessard, Larry & Li, Jianyu & Mongeau, Luc. (2021). Injectable, Pore‐Forming, Perfusable Double‐Network Hydrogels Resilient to Extreme Biomechanical Stimulations. Advanced Science. 9. 2102627. link to article

Marco Amabili• Department of Mechanical Engineering

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Recent Research Publications

  • Amabili, Marco & Franchini, Giulio & Garziera, Rinaldo. (2024). Experimental characterization of residual deformations in human descending thoracic aortas. Journal of the mechanical behavior of biomedical materials. 153. 106492. link to article
  • Hameury, Celia & Ferrari, Giovanni & Balasubramanian, Prabakaran & Silva, Tarcisio & Amabili, Marco & Buabdulla, Abdulaziz & Franchini, Giulio. (2024). Experimental Determination of Electromechanical Coupling Matrices for Active Vibration Control of Composite Structures. link to article
  • Firouzi, Nasser & Amabili, Marco. (2024). Two-dimensional growth of incompressible and compressible soft biological tissues. European Journal of Mechanics - A/Solids. 103. 105150. . link to article
  • Pinho, Flávio & Amabili, Marco & Prado, Zenón & Silva, Frederico. (2023). Nonlinear free vibration analysis of doubly curved shells. Nonlinear Dynamics. 111. 1-21. link to article
  • Painter, Brian & Amabili, Marco. (2023). Non-planar vibrations of beams with geometric imperfections and hysteretic boundary conditions. Nonlinear Dynamics. 111. 1-13. link to article

Mathias Legrand• Department of Mechanical Engineering

McGill ProfileLab Website

Recent Research Publications

  • Thi, Huong & Junca, Stephane & Legrand, Mathias. (2021). First Return Time to the contact hyperplane for N -degree-of-freedom vibro-impact systems. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B. 27. link to article
  • Yoong Ormaza, Carlos & Legrand, Mathias. (2020). Nonsmooth Modal Analysis of a Non-internally Resonant Finite Bar Subject to a Unilateral Contact Constraint. link to article
  • Guérin, Nicolas & Thorin, Anders & Thouverez, Fabrice & Legrand, Mathias & Almeida, Patricio. (2018). Thermomechanical Model Reduction for Efficient Simulations of Rotor-Stator Contact Interaction. V07CT35A017. link to article
  • Thi, Huong & Junca, Stephane & Legrand, Mathias. (2018). Periodic solutions of a two-degree-of-freedom autonomous vibro-impact oscillator with sticking phases. Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems. 28. link to article

Michael Kokkolaras• Department of Mechanical Engineering

McGill ProfileLab Website

Recent Research Publications

  • A. Tfaily, Y. Diouane, N. Bartoli, M. Kokkolaras (January 2024). Bayesian optimization with hidden constraints for aircraft design, Technical report, Les Cahiers du GERAD G–2024–10, GERAD, HEC Montréal, Canada
  • Julian Martinsson Bonde, Michael Kokkolaras, Petter Andersson, Massimo Panarotto, Ola Isaksson, A similarity-assisted multi-fidelity approach to conceptual design space exploration, Computers in Industry, Volume 151, 2023,103957,ISSN 0166-3615. link to article
  • Dzahini, K.J., Kokkolaras, M. & Le Digabel, S. Constrained stochastic blackbox optimization using a progressive barrier and probabilistic estimates. Math. Program. 198, 675–732 (2023). link to article
  • Lawand, L., Andersson, P. & Kokkolaras, M. Integrated design–manufacturing decision support for additively manufactured components. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 119, 3917–3930 (2022). link to article
  • K. Al Handawi and M. Kokkolaras, "Optimization of Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Policies Using Artificial Life," in IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computational Intelligence, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 26-40, Feb. 2022. link to article

Narges Armanfard• Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering

McGill ProfileLab Website

Recent Research Publications

  • Sushant Sinha, Denzel Guye, Xiaoping Ma, Kashif Rehman, Stephen Yue, Narges Armanfard, Neural network prediction of the effect of thermomechanical controlled processing on mechanical properties, Machine Learning with Applications, Volume 15, 2024, 100531, ISSN 2666-8270, link to article.
  • EMA-Net: Efficient Multitask Affinity Learning for Dense Scene Predictions: Dimitrios Sinodinos, Narges Armanfard , link to article
  • Bahareh Nikpour , Dimitrios Sinodinos , Narges Armanfard . Deep Reinforcement Learning in Human Activity Recognition: A Survey. TechRxiv. February 22, 2022.
    DOI: link to article
  • Multivariate Time-Series Anomaly Detection with Contaminated Data: Thi Kieu Khanh Ho, Narges Armanfard, arXiv:2308.12563
  • Explainable Attention for Few-shot Learning and Beyond : Bahareh Nikpour, Narges Armanfard. link to article

Pascal Hubert• Department of Mechanical Engineering

McGill ProfileLab Website

Recent Research Publications

  • Ilse, Joshua & Hubert, Pascal. (2023). CHARACTERIZING LARGE-SCALE HYBRID-MANUFACTURED TOOL DURABILITY THROUGH A SMALL-SCALE COMPOSITE PROCESS SCHEME.
  • Barroeta Robles, Julieta & Dube, Mridula & Hubert, Pascal & Yousefpour, A.. (2023). Healing study of poly (ether-imide) and poly ether ether ketone using resin films and a parallel plate rheometer. Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing. 174. 107736. link to article
  • Hostettler, Nathan & Hubert, Pascal. (2023). Electrical characterization and sensing capabilities of self-assembly multi-scale multi-phase graphene-based composites. Carbon. 208. 131-139. link to article
  • Tikhani, Farimah & Hubert, Pascal. (2022). A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON MATERIAL SELECTION OF AEROSPACE COMPONENTS FOR FUSED FILAMENT FABRICATION.
  • Barroeta Robles, Julieta & Guthrie, Aria & Dubé, Martine & Hubert, Pascal & Yousefpour, Ali. (2022). An Approach to the Repair of Thermoplastic Composites Using Resistance Welding with a Hybrid Heating Element. link to article

Yaoyao Fiona Zhao• Department of Mechanical Engineering

McGill ProfileLab Website

Recent Research Publications

  • Zhang, Chonghui & Zhao, Yaoyao. (2024). A Critical Review on the Application of Machine Learning in Supporting Auxetic Metamaterial Design. Journal of Physics: Materials. link to article
  • Xie, Jiarui & Zhang, Chonghui & Sun, Lijun & Zhao, Yaoyao. (2024). Fairness- and Uncertainty-Aware Data Generation for Data-Driven Design Based on Active Learning. Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering. 24. 1-34.  link to article
  • Velivela, Pavan & Zhao, Yaoyao. (2023). BIKAS: Bio-Inspired Knowledge Acquisition and Simulacrum—A Knowledge Database to Support Multifunctional Design Concept Generation. Data Intelligence. 1-28. link to article
  • Sarabhai, Shivangi & Velivela, Pavan & Zhao, Yaoyao & Sánchez, Fabián & Kibsey, Mitch. (2023). Comparative Study of the Flow and Thermal Characteristics of Non-Stochastic Lattice and Bio-Inspired Multi-Scale Structures for Gas Turbine Engine Applications. link to article
  • Zhang, Chonghui & Xie, Jiarui & Shanian, Ali & Kibsey, Mitch & Zhao, Yaoyao. (2023). A hybrid deep learning approach for the design of 2D low porosity auxetic metamaterials. 123. B. link to article

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