Zahra Sotoudeh
California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, CA·Engineering
Large structures such as aircraft, rockets, ships and cars vibrate in a huge number of ways at closely spaced frequencies. Predicting those vibrations matters for noise control, damage detection and design.
- Fields
Engineering
Physics
Mathematics & Statistics
- Topics
statistical energy analysis
structural vibration
nonlinear vibrations
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Develop a thermodynamic theory of statistical energy analysis based on statistical entropy, classical entropy and Clausius's law, so the method can handle nonlinear vibrations.
- Use physical experiments plus finite-element simulations combined with Monte Carlo sampling to test how well the theory captures linear and nonlinear energy transfer in discrete structures.
- Model coupled rod-rod and plate-plate systems to build benchmark examples and verification metrics for statistical vibration theories.
- Run parameter studies to find the upper limit of nonlinearity strength at which the entropy-based statistical energy analysis still gives valid predictions.
More about the research
Standard computer models struggle here: they are expensive and very sensitive to small uncertainties. Statistical energy analysis (SEA) is a shortcut. It predicts how vibrational energy flows between parts of a structure and how much is lost, but it only works when vibrations respond linearly, in direct proportion to the input. Large-amplitude motion and many materials break that assumption.
Why it matters
Engineers designing aircraft, launch vehicles, ships and cars could gain a faster, more reliable way to predict vibration and noise in complex structures, including those with nonlinear behavior. This could support structural optimization, damage detection and noise control. The benchmark cases would also give other researchers a common standard for testing vibration theories.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
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The school
California State Polytechnic University-Pomona: 2 labs on PI Pages, $14M a year on research, 18 research doctorates a year.
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