ENCS Distinguished Speaker Series

Smart structures and multifunctional structures and materials provide the potential for solving problems associated with air vehicles especially unmanned air vehicles. This talk reviews the evolution of smart structures into multifunctional structures and metastructures, followed by some applications to UAVs including energy harvesting, wing morphing and vibration suppression. Smart materials as used here refers largely to piezoelectric and shape memory materials.

Multifunctional materials and structures refers to those structures that provide more than just containment and strength but rather also provide integrated sensing or actuation. Metastructure refers simply to a “made up structure” providing attributes not commonly found in structures made from naturally occurring materials. The application of these materials to UAVs allows increased and unique performance characteristics.

About the speaker

Daniel J. Inman received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Mechanical Engineering in 1980 and is Chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, as well as the C. L. “Kelly” Johnson Collegiate Professor. Since 1980, he has published eight books (on vibration, energy harvesting, control, statics, and dynamics), eight software manuals, 20 book chapters, over 300 journal papers and 533 proceedings papers, given 62 keynote or plenary lectures, graduated 61 Ph.D. students and supervised more than 75 MS degrees. He works in the area of applying smart structures to solve aerospace engineering problems including energy harvesting, structural health monitoring, vibration suppression and morphing. He is a Fellow of ASME, AIAA, IIAV and AAM. He currently serves as Professor & Chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan.