Charbel Farhat
Encyclopedia
Charbel Farhat is the Vivian Church Hoff Professor of Aircraft Structures in the School of Engineering at Stanford University, where he is also Chairman of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Professor in the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, and Director of the Army High Performance Computing Research Center. He also serves on the United States Bureau of Industry and Security's Emerging Technology and Research Advisory Committee (ETRAC) at the United States Department of Commerce, and on the technical assessment boards of several national and international research councils and foundations.
Farhat is listed as an ISI Highly Cited Author in Engineering by the ISI Web of Knowledge, Thomson Scientific Company. For his lasting contributions to aeroelasticity
, CFD on moving grids, computational acoustics
, computational mechanics
, and high performance computing, Farhat has received numerous awards and academic distinctions. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the World Innovation Foundation, the International Association of Computational Mechanics, the US Association of Computational Mechanics, and the
Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics. He is also an Editor of the International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, and the International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids.
Farhat led the development of the Finite Element Tearing and Interconnecting (FETI
) method for the scalable solution of large-scale systems of equations on massively parallel processors. FETI was incorporated in several finite element production and commercial software in the US and Europe. It enabled the Sandia National Laboratories’ structural dynamics code SALINAS to win a Gordon Bell Prize
in the special accomplishment category based on innovation. Farhat also developed the three-field computational framework for coupled nonlinear fluid-structure interaction problems. With his co-workers, he introduced the concept of a Discrete Geometric Conservation Law (DGCL) and established its relationship to the nonlinear stability of CFD schemes on moving grids. This led to the development of the nonlinear aeroelastic software AERO that is used for many applications ranging from the shape sensitivity analysis of Formula 1 cars, to the nonlinear flutter analysis of supersonic business jet concepts.
and Sidney Fernbach Award
from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society, the Computational Mechanics Award from the International Association of Computational Mechanics (IACM), the Modeling and Simulation Award from the Department of Defense, the IBM Sup’Prize Achievement Award, the CRAY Research Award, and the United States Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation and the White House.
Farhat is listed as an ISI Highly Cited Author in Engineering by the ISI Web of Knowledge, Thomson Scientific Company. For his lasting contributions to aeroelasticity
Aeroelasticity
Aeroelasticity is the science which studies the interactions among inertial, elastic, and aerodynamic forces. It was defined by Arthur Collar in 1947 as "the study of the mutual interaction that takes place within the triangle of the inertial, elastic, and aerodynamic forces acting on structural...
, CFD on moving grids, computational acoustics
Acoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...
, computational mechanics
Computational mechanics
Computational mechanics is the discipline concerned with the use of computational methods to study phenomena governed by the principles of mechanics. Before the emergence of computational science as a "third way" besides theoretical and experimental sciences, computational mechanics was widely...
, and high performance computing, Farhat has received numerous awards and academic distinctions. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the World Innovation Foundation, the International Association of Computational Mechanics, the US Association of Computational Mechanics, and the
Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics. He is also an Editor of the International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, and the International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids.
Career
Farhat began his career at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he served as Chairman of the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and Director of the Center for Aerospace Structures. Then, he moved to Stanford University where he occupies the Vivian Church Hoff Chair of Engineering, and serves as Chairman of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Director of the Army High Performance Computing Research Center.Farhat led the development of the Finite Element Tearing and Interconnecting (FETI
FETI
In mathematics, in particular numerical analysis, the FETI method is an iterative substructuring method for solving systems of linear equations from the finite element method for the solution of elliptic partial differential equations, in particular in computational mechanics In each iteration,...
) method for the scalable solution of large-scale systems of equations on massively parallel processors. FETI was incorporated in several finite element production and commercial software in the US and Europe. It enabled the Sandia National Laboratories’ structural dynamics code SALINAS to win a Gordon Bell Prize
Gordon Bell Prize
The Gordon Bell Prizes are a set of awards awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery in conjunction with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers each year at the Supercomputing Conference to recognize outstanding achievement in high-performance computing applications...
in the special accomplishment category based on innovation. Farhat also developed the three-field computational framework for coupled nonlinear fluid-structure interaction problems. With his co-workers, he introduced the concept of a Discrete Geometric Conservation Law (DGCL) and established its relationship to the nonlinear stability of CFD schemes on moving grids. This led to the development of the nonlinear aeroelastic software AERO that is used for many applications ranging from the shape sensitivity analysis of Formula 1 cars, to the nonlinear flutter analysis of supersonic business jet concepts.
Research monographs
- Charbel Farhat and Francois-Xavier Roux, Implicit Parallel Processing in Structural Mechanics, Computational Mechanics Advances, Vol. II, No. 1, pp. 1–124 (1994)
- Charbel Farhat, Domain Decomposition and Parallel Processing, Postgraduate Studies in Supercomputing, ed. FNRS/NFWO, Universie de Liege, Belgium, 1992.
- Charbel Farhat, An Introduction to Parallel Scientific Computations, Postgraduate Studies in Supercomputing, ed. FNRS/NFWO, Universite de Liege, Belgium, 1991.
Awards and honors
Farhat was knighted by the Prime Minister of France in the Order of Academic Palms and awarded the Medal of Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques. He is also the recipient of several other prestigious awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Computers and Information in Engineering Division, the Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the John von Neumann Medal, Computational and Applied Sciences Award, and R. H. Gallagher Special Achievement Award from the United States Association of Computational Mechanics, the Gordon Bell PrizeGordon Bell Prize
The Gordon Bell Prizes are a set of awards awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery in conjunction with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers each year at the Supercomputing Conference to recognize outstanding achievement in high-performance computing applications...
and Sidney Fernbach Award
Sidney Fernbach Award
The Sidney Fernbach Award established in 1992 by the IEEE Computer Society, in memory of Sidney Fernbach, one of the pioneers in the development and application of high performance computers for the solution of large computational problems as the Division Chief for the Computation Division at...
from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society, the Computational Mechanics Award from the International Association of Computational Mechanics (IACM), the Modeling and Simulation Award from the Department of Defense, the IBM Sup’Prize Achievement Award, the CRAY Research Award, and the United States Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation and the White House.