Physics, Uncertainty & Scale: Towards Credible Composite Aircraft Simulations

Free Webinar

Wednesday, 26 November 2025 | Online

14:00 (Bengaluru)
09:30 (Berlin) | 08:30 (London)

P​art of the प्रवाह -Pravaha - NAFEMS India Webinar Series
E​xploring Frontiers in Engineering Modelling & Simulation

Building seamlessly on the previous NAFEMS webinar “Leveraging Scientific ML to Augment Engineering Modelling & Simulation,” this session pivots squarely to what simulation credibility demands at real-world scales. In the fast-evolving landscape of composite aircraft structures, the challenge is clear: no amount of data or neural prediction can substitute for rigorous physics, robust mathematics & sharp uncertainty quantification at the component level.

Modern aircraft certification still relies heavily on costly, time-consuming physical testing. Yet, the escalating complexity of nonlinear, failure-driven behaviour in large composite assemblies demands a new paradigm. With Airbus expertise in-tandem, & rooted in my ongoing doctoral advising for their engineer Rahul’s research on uncertainty quantification, this talk dives deep into cutting-edge advances: from the principled deployment of the Variational Asymptotic Method (VAM) & the collateral model order reduction to the latest adaptive sampling, dimensionality reduction, & multi-fidelity frameworks. We examine how projection-based & physics-informed strategies can distil multi-million degree-of-freedom nonlinear finite element (FE) models, retaining essential behavioural fidelity, yet rendering uncertainty analysis truly tractable & reasonably meaningful!

Surrogate models, adaptive & actively learned, are deployed not as black box replacements, but as accelerators supplementing physics-based simulation, enabling fast, reliable sensitivity & reliability assessments. Recent literature, industry joint studies & NMCAD Lab’s latest results converge on this: taming uncertainty in aerospace nonlinear FE analysis is not about more computation, but smarter mathematical innovation grounded in ample verification, real validation & thus, almost inevitable global collaboration.

For us NAFEMS members, the message is simple: the future of composites certification is neither brute force nor AI alone, but a blend of modern mechanics, clever mathematics, & pragmatic uncertainty quantification too, undertaken in open partnership between academia & industry, as our ongoing Airbus–IISc collaboration exemplifies.

Agenda

• W​elcome & Introductions
  J​o Potts, NAFEMS
• U​pdate on NAFEMS India
  NAFEMS India Chair - Uma Maheshwar | BEC - GE Aerospace
  NAFEMS India Chair Elect - Jaya Raju Namala | Airbus Group India Private Ltd. 
• Physics, Uncertainty & Scale: Towards Credible Composite Aircraft Simulations
  Prof. Dineshkumar Harursampath, Indian Institute of Science
• Q​&A

Professor Dineshkumar Harursampath

A​ssociate Professor
Structures & Materials

I​ndian Institute of Science
Department of Aerospace Engineering

A PhD from Georgia Tech, ranked world no. 1 in aerospace engineering recently, ME from IISc, consistently ranked no. 1 university in India & BTech from IIT-Madras, ranked no. 1 engineering college in India, all in aerospace engineering as a top ranker, Prof Harursampath heads NMCAD Lab, which he founded more than a quarter century back, at the Dept. of Aerospace Engg. in IISc, béṅgalūrū, bhārat. He is also a visiting professor at ENS Cachan, France; TU Delft, Netherlands; PoliMi & PoliTo, Italy, the hosting professor for the annual Georgia Tech Study Abroad Program as well as the ISAE-SUPAERO student exchange program; & teaches online courses for Arizona University, NUS & NTU, apart from continuing education programs for the industry in the area of composites & flight vehicle structures & design. Attracting tens of crores of rupees (millions of US dollars) in funding from HAL, DST, DRDO, Govt. of India, Boeing, Bell Helicopters etc., he has advised 100+ post-doctoral, doctoral, masters & bachelors students, resulting in their worthy placement & 400+ well-cited publications in renowned international conference proceedings, books(~33) & journals(~100). He takes pride in his HRD & placement efforts as many of his students are now professors at universities around the world, including the prestigious IITs or senior scientists at PSUs & MNCs.

He & his student teams have won more than a dozen major international awards, including the Olympics for Aerospace Engineers: UNESCO Fly Your Ideas & Airbus Innovation Showdown. He also coordinates the Indian academia for Airbus Link the Top program & is widely covered by the popular media. Online & offline searches reveal at least a hundred instances of coverage of Prof Harursampath & his many student team’s achievements (in human potential development, research, teaching, competitions, collaborations, funding, etc.) by popular media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, television, blogs, university websites etc. have been noted in English, vernacular Indian languages, German, Portuguese, Japanese etc. around the world.