Education:

• PhD Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan ‘13
• M Eng, Automotive Engineering, University of Michigan ‘09
• B Eng, Automotive Engineering, University of Madras ‘04

Research Interests: ^top

• Damage, fracture and fatigue of composite materials
• Low velocity and high velocity impact of composite materials
• Materials architecture

Biography: ^top

Dr. Paul Davidson is an assistant research scientist in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining University of Michigan, Dr. Davidson was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at University of Washington, Seattle. Dr. Davidson was also researcher at General Electric Research Center in Niskayuna, NY. His primary research interests include composite mechanics, specifically on the damage, failure and fatigue of composite materials, advanced manufacturing methods, multi-scale analysis, low velocity and high velocity impact damage, and micro-mechanics. He has extensive industrial experience in the aerospace, wind energy and automotive sectors.

At GE, he worked on extreme event risk mitigation technologies that prevent catastrophic aerospace engine failure due to bird strike, blade out, impact and sand ingestion. Dr Davidson is currently working on, optimization of spacecraft structural performance using advanced Automated Fiber Placement methods, multi-scale fatigue of composite materials, Machine learning methods for Non-Destructive Evaluation of impact damage.

Positions Held at UM

Research Scientist, 2018 – current

Awards: ^top

Honors and Awards

• ASME/Boeing award for best paper – 2019
• The Joint Center for Aerospace Technology Innovation (JCATI) Award 2018-2019.
• The Joint Center for Aerospace Technology Innovation (JCATI) Award 2017-2018.
• University of Washington Royalty Research Fund and Washington Research Foundation, CoMotion Innovation Fund Award.
• Nominee, UW Postdoc Mentoring Award
• General Electric Above and Beyond awards for Leadership, Innovation.
•  “Leading the way” award -Visteon global award for excellence and leadership.

Society Memberships

• American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
• American Society of Composites
• American Society of Mechanical Engineering

Publications: ^top

Journal Papers

1. Nguyen, M.H., Vijayachandran, A. A., Davidson, P., Call, D., Lee, D., Waas, A.M., Effect of Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) Manufacturing Signature on Mechanical Performance of Composite Structures, Journal of Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing (accepted)
2. Nguyen, M.H., Davidson, P., Waas, A.M., Particle-toughened interlayers enhance mechanical response of composite laminates, Journal of Composites Science and Technology (2019): 107761
3. Joseph, Ashith PK, Paul Davidson, and Anthony M. Waas. “Progressive damage and failure analysis of single lap shear and double lap shear bolted joints.” Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing 113 (2018): 264-274.
4. Davidson, Paul, and Anthony M. Waas. “Probabilistic defect analysis of fiber reinforced composites using kriging and support vector machine based surrogates.” Composite Structures 195 (2018): 186-198.
5. Croxford, Alastair M., Paul Davidson, and Anthony M. Waas. “Influence of hole eccentricity on failure progression in a double shear bolted joint (DSBJ).” Composites Science and Technology 168 (2018): 179-187.
6. Davidson, Paul, and Anthony M. Waas. “The effects of defects on the compressive response of thick carbon composites: an experimental and computational study.” Composite Structures 176 (2017): 582-596
7. Davidson, Paul, and Anthony M. Waas. “Mechanics of kinking in fiber-reinforced composites under compressive loading.” Mathematics and Mechanics of Solids6 (2016): 667-684.
8. Davidson, Paul, Anthony M. Waas, and Chandra S. Yerramalli. “Experimental determination of validated, critical interfacial modes I and II energy release rates in a composite sandwich panel.” Composite Structures2 (2012): 477-483.
9. Davidson, Paul, and Anthony M. Waas. “Non-smooth mode I fracture of fibre-reinforced composites: an experimental, numerical and analytical study.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences1965 (2012): 1942-1965.

Conference Papers

1. Davidson, Paul, Armanj D. Hasanyan, and Anthony M. Waas. “Multiscale fatigue modeling of composites.” AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum. 2019. (AIAA – 2019-1546)
2. Nguyen, M.H., Vijayachandran, A. A., Davidson, P., Waas, A.M., Particle Toughened Interfaces Enhance Mechanical Response of Composites, 60^th AIAA/ ASME/ ASCE/ AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, San Diego, CA, January 2019. (AIAA – 2019-1041)
3. Nguyen, M.H., Vijayachandran, A. A., Davidson, P., Call, D., Lee, D., Waas, A.M., Effect of Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) Manufacturing Signature on Mechanical Performance, 66^th AIAA/ ASME/ ASCE/ AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, San Diego, CA, January 2019. (AIAA – 2019-0516)
4. Nguyen, Minh H, et al. “Effect of Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) Manufacturing Induced Imperfections on Composite Performance.” Proceedings of the American Society for Composites—Thirty-third Technical Conference. 2018.
5. Vijayanchanran A, et al. “Buckling Performance Optimization of Steered Composite Panels while Accounting for Manufacturing Constraints.” Proceedings of the American Society for Composites—Thirty-third Technical Conference. 2018.
6. Davidson, Paul, Ashith PK Joseph, and Anthony M. Waas. “Multi scale progressive damage and failure analysis of bolted joints.” 2018 AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference. 2018. (AIAA 2018-0740)
7. Joseph, Ashith PK, Paul Davidson, and Anthony M. Waas. “Failure analysis of composite multi-bolt joints using intra-inter crack band model (I2CBM).” 2018 AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference. 2018. (AIAA 2018-0977)
8. Ngyun, minh, et al. “Experimental Study of In-plane Shear Response of Interface Toughened Carbon Fiber Composites.” Proceedings of the American Society for Composites—Thirty-third Technical Conference. 2018.
9. Davidson Paul, and Anthony Waas. “Effects of Out of Plane Stress on Progressive Kinking in Internal Zero Plies.” Proceedings of the American Society for Composites—Thirty-third Technical Conference. 2018.
10. Davidson Paul, and Anthony Waas. “Inverse Modeling of Compressive Response in Presence of Defects.” Proceedings of the American Society for Composites—Thirty-second Technical Conference. 2017.
11. Joseph, Ashith PK, Paul Davidson, and Anthony M. Waas. “Intra-Inter Crack Band Model (I2CBM) as a Prediction Tool for Open Hole and Filled Hole Failure Analysis of Composite.” Proceedings of the American Society for Composites—Thirty-second Technical Conference. 2017.