Hussein M. Zbib, PhDRegents Professor |
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About Hussein M. Zbib
Zbib is a Professor at Washington State University in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering in Pullman WA, where he also served as the School Director from 2003 until 2011. He is also the director for the Computational Mechanics and Materials Science Laboratory (CMMS), and is affiliate professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Program, the Institute for Materials Research, the Center of Integrated Biotechnology, & the Bioengineering Research Center, all at WSU. He has served as the Editor for the ASME Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology.
Zbib, who was born in Lebanon, has over 30 years of experience in academia, as an educator, researcher and administrator. He received his Bachelor, Masters, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Mechanics from Michigan Technological University in 1987 in the area of mechanics and materials science and engineering. After a short time as a Visiting Assistant Professor at MTU, he began is academic career at Washington State University in 1988 as an Assistant Professor, and achieved the rank of Professor in 1998. He’s held visiting appointments at many universities and national laboratories in Europe and Japan.
Over the past 30 years his work has covered many areas tied to plasticity, including dislocation theory, dislocation dynamics, deformation and failure at small length scales, shock waves, fracture and damage in metals and nanomaterials, and manufacturing processes. He applied fundamental theories to practical applications, including machining, sheet metal forming and superplasticity, mechanics of geological materials; and adapted multiscale modeling of discrete dislocations to finite element analyses. Over the past 15 years, Zbib focused his work on establishing models that can predict the mechanical behavior of materials at length scales on the order of dislocations, bridging first principles and atomistic modeling with continuum mechanics.
Hussein has carried out pioneering work in the area of multiscale theory, modeling and computation in mechanics and materials science and engineering. He and his collaborators (both students and colleagues at labs and universities) developed a multiscale methodology to model material behavior at various length scales and time scales. He led the development of massive parallel numerical codes to analyze discrete systems of defects in solids, particularly dislocations and micro-cracks. The result of Zbib’s effort is an integrated software approach, Multiscale Dislocation Dynamics Plasticity (MDDP), representing a prototype of a new kind of modeling in computational materials science. This effort involved the establish- ment of new techniques and methodologies that are quite different and more complex than those involved in classical numerical finite element analysis and molecular dynamics. The methodology established by Zbib and his co-workers has been one of the most visible recent developments in the computational materials sciences in the last two decades. Their work has appeared in many international journals, including Nature and International Journal of Plasticity. These theories, techniques, and the MDDP models are now being used by many scientists and engineers at national laboratories and many universities all over the world.
In addition to his work in MDDP, he was one of the original contributors to the development of the strain gradient theory of plasticity which has become an active area of research in the mechanics and materials research communities. His early work in this area led to the development of new models and experimental methods that provided explanation for the scale effect on material strength, failure and material instabilities. His work in the area of superplasticity is at the cutting edge of technology and made suprerplastic forming of aluminum and titanium alloys technology viable for industrial application, and the techniques have been adopted by the aerospace industry.
Zbib has been honored by his peers in many ways and received many national and international awards. In addition to the award for which this issue is dedicated, he has also received the Computational Mechanics Achievement Award from the Japanese Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2003. Zbib is a Fellow of both the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He held the rank of Laboratory Fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (2011–2013), and is a member of the Academy of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Mechanics of Michigan Tech University. He is one of the founding members of the Lebanese Academy of Sciences. He has been invited to deliver many Keynote lectures at insinuations all over the world.
Education:
- Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technical University, 1987
- MS in Mechanical Engineering, Michigan Technical University, 1983
- BS in Mechanical Engineering, Michigan Technical University, 1981
Research Interest:
- Mechanics: Multiscale modeling, numerical analysis, plasticity, composites, materials instabilities, damage and fracture.
- Materials: Dislocation theory, dislocation dynamics, crystal plasticity, defects, radiation effects, nanomaterials.
Honors:
- Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (2011)
- Khan International Award for Outstanding Lifelong Contribution to the Field of Plasticity (2010)
- Member, Lebanese Academy of Sciences (2006)
- Member, Academy of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technological University (2004)
- Computational Mechanics Achievement Award, Japanese Society of Mechanical Engineers (2003)
- Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (2002)