News on Computational Solid Mechanics Lab @ UCI

Prof. Rimoli helps shape the selection of the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Prof. Rimoli took part as a selector in the 2026 Schmidt Science Fellows Selector Workshop, held on June 30 and July 1 at the Interdisciplinary Science Summit in association with Duke University. An invited working group of the program’s reviewers and selectors, together with Senior Fellows and program staff, met to refine how future Fellows are chosen: how to judge a candidate’s potential for interdisciplinary research and readiness to move beyond their doctoral field, how to keep assessments consistent across reviewers, and how AI changes both the review of applications and the evaluation of an applicant’s own scientific contribution.

Sofia Brown develops quantum algorithms for materials simulation at Los Alamos

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

PhD student Sofia Pilar Brown took part in the UCI-LANL-SoCalHub Research Fellowship, co-mentored by Prof. Rimoli and Los Alamos National Laboratory senior scientist Ricardo Lebensohn. Her project translates simulations of how heterogeneous materials deform under stress into algorithms that can run on quantum computers. The fellowship pairs UCI doctoral students with national-laboratory scientists and gives them access to specialized facilities, including LANL’s quantum computer simulator.

Read the full story: Two UCI Researchers Make Breakthroughs During Los Alamos National Lab Fellowship (UCI Samueli School of Engineering).

Prof. Rimoli speaks at the 2025 MAES Leadership Academy

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

UC Irvine hosted the 2025 MAES Leadership Academy on October 10 to 12, bringing together 66 student leaders from 12 universities. Prof. Rimoli was one of the faculty speakers and talked about his path as one of the first Latino aerospace engineering professors in the southeastern United States, about servant leadership, and about representation in STEM. NASA astronaut José Hernández gave the keynote.

Read the full story: One Dream, One Familia: UC Irvine Hosts the 2025 MAES Leadership Academy (UCI Samueli School of Engineering).

UCI students build a full-scale WWI biplane in a project Prof. Rimoli helped launch

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Between 80 and 100 UCI engineering students are building a full-scale replica of the Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny”, a World War I training biplane, for the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum. Prof. Rimoli initiated UCI’s involvement in the project and recruited faculty advisors David Copp and Jacqueline Huynh to guide the student teams working on the fuselage, engine, tail, and wings.

Read the full story: UC Irvine Student Engineers Build a WWI Biplane (UCI Samueli School of Engineering).

Lab co-authors Nature Communications study on slip banding in CrCoNi alloys

Thu, 01 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A UC Irvine team led by Prof. Penghui Cao, with Prof. Rimoli among the co-authors, reported in Nature Communications that two distinct types of slip bands form in the CrCoNi alloy under compression. Confined bands follow the classical Frank-Read picture of repeated dislocation emission, while extended bands grow through the deactivation of dislocation sources and the creation of new ones on neighboring planes. The work combined multiscale experiments and modeling from the microscopic to the atomic scale.

Lab joins the new Pratt & Whitney Center of Excellence for Solidification Science

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

UC Irvine and Pratt & Whitney have established a Center of Excellence for Solidification Science, directed by Distinguished Professor Diran Apelian, to advance the materials processing behind jet-engine components such as single-crystal turbine blades. Prof. Rimoli and Project Scientist Kevin Garanger are among the center’s core faculty, alongside colleagues from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Read the announcement: UC Irvine and Pratt & Whitney establish materials science center of excellence (UCI News). Center website: Advanced Casting Research Center.

Prof. Rimoli named ASME Fellow

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has elected Prof. Rimoli a Fellow, a distinction that recognizes significant engineering achievements. The announcement highlights his work on numerical methods for nonlinear microstructures and on metamaterials for energy absorption, together with his record as an educator, including the Truss Me! app that teaches structural mechanics as a game.

Read the full story: Julián Rimoli Named ASME Fellow (UCI Samueli School of Engineering).

Prof. Rimoli appointed chair of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Dean Magnus Egerstedt announced the appointment of Prof. Rimoli as chair of the UCI Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering for a three-year term that began on July 1, 2023. He succeeds Prof. Roger Rangel.

Read the full story: UC Irvine Appoints Julián José Rimoli as Chair of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (UCI Samueli School of Engineering).

Prof. Rimoli joins the UCI faculty

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Prof. Rimoli joined the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC Irvine in fall 2022 as one of five new Samueli School of Engineering faculty members, coming from Georgia Tech, where he was the Pratt & Whitney Professor of Aerospace Engineering. His research focuses on the computational mechanics of materials and structures across multiple length and time scales.

Read the full story: UCI Engineering Faculty Ranks Grow with Five New Members (UCI Samueli School of Engineering).

First 3D tensegrity metamaterials published in Advanced Materials

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Engineers at UC Irvine and Georgia Tech have created a new class of ultralightweight mechanical metamaterials based on tensegrity, in which isolated rigid bars are held in a mesh of tensioned tethers. The lattices spread deformation throughout the structure instead of failing locally, giving a 25-fold gain in deformability and orders-of-magnitude higher energy absorption than comparable lattice materials. Prof. Rimoli, then at Georgia Tech, conceived the periodic tensegrity lattices, and lab member Julie Kraus co-authored the work with Jens Bauer, Cameron Crook, and Prof. Lorenzo Valdevit of UCI. The study appeared in Advanced Materials with support from NASA and the National Science Foundation.