From Left to right: Yongming Liu (Professor, Arizona State; ASME TC Chair), Su Tian (Senior Research Scientist, AnalySwift), Wenbin Yu (Professor, Purdue), Xin Liu (Assistant Professor, UT Arlington), Nyle (Senior Director of Structures Engineering, Boeing), Liang Zhang (Senior Research Scientist, AnalySwift)

Purdue AAE professor Wenbin Yu and his co-authors received the ASME/Boeing Structures and Materials Award at this year’s ASME Aerospace Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials (SSDM) Conference. 

"This paper attempted to solve a challenging problem in mechanics of composites using machine learning along with rigorous thermodynamics principles. A very promising method has been found for life prediction of aerospace composites," Yu says. "This award remains as the most prestigious and coveted 'best paper' award in aerospace structures, structural dynamics, and materials in its almost half-century history."

The paper, titled “Machine Learning-Aided Cohesive Zone Modeling of Fatigue Delamination,” was published in October 2023 after being presented at the SSDM 2023 conference. Yu co-authored the paper with his former PhD students Xin Liu (PhD AAE 2020), Su Tian (PhD AAE 2022), and Zhenyuan Gao (PhD AAE 2019), and his former postdoc Liang Zhang, who is now a senior research scientist at Yu’s company, AnalySwift. They received the award at the SSDM conference in Seattle earlier this month. Yu, Zhang, Tian and Liu are also involved in a research project at AnalySwift that recently received $800,000 in research funding.

The Boeing Structures and Materials Award, given by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers annually since 1979, recognizes an outstanding paper on the basis of originality and significance to the field. Winners receive a cash award and certificate.