PEDLS Jian Cao — Lecture
Event Date: | April 9, 2025 |
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Speaker: | Jian Cao, Cardiss Collins Professor of Mechanical Engineering and (by courtesy) Civil and Environmental Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, Director, Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation (NIMSI), and Associate Vice President for Research, Northwestern University
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Time: | 2:30-3:30pm |
Location: | ARMS Atrium |
Priority: | No |
School or Program: | Mechanical Engineering |
College Calendar: | Show |
Hosted by the College of Engineering and the School of Mechanical Engineering
Abstract
Jian Caos manufacturing group aims to advance the capability to co-design materials and manufacturing processes using hybrid physics-based and data-driven approaches. In this talk, Cao will demonstrate their work in the development of differentiable simulation tools, sensing and process control to achieve effective and efficient predictions and control of a materials mechanical behaviour in metal additive manufacturing processes. Furthermore, Cao will show how to use machine learning to accelerate the physics-based simulations and to realize active sensing with the goal of effective in situ local process control. Caos solutions particularly target three notoriously challenging aspects of the process: long history-dependent properties, complex geometric features and the high dimensionality of their design space. The approaches are applicable to other manufacturing processes as well, such as flexible incremental forming.
Biography
Cardiss Collins Professor Jian Cao (MIT’PhD, MIT’MS, SJTU’BS) specialized in innovative manufacturing processes and systems, particularly in the areas of deformation-based processes and laser additive manufacturing processes. She is the founding director of the research center on Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation, known as NIMSI.
Cao is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the International Academy for Production Engineering and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). Her major awards include Department of Defense Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, ASME Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award, the inaugural ASME DeVor-Kapoor Manufacturing Medal, Hideo Hanafusa Outstanding Investigator Award for Flexible Automation, ASME Milton C. Shaw Manufacturing Research Medal, Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award from ASME and Pi Tau Sigma, SME Gold Medal, and SME Frederick W. Taylor Research Medal. Cao was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Materials Processing Technology.
Cao now serves as an associate vice president for research at Northwestern and is a member of the National Materials and Manufacturing Board of the National Academies; the Defense Materials, Manufacturing and its Infrastructure Standing Committee of the National Academies; board of directors of SME and board of mHUB—accelerator for hardtech innovation and manufacturing in Chicago.