School of Engineering

Achille Messac
Professor
http://www.rpi.edu/~messac/

Department Affiliation:

Department of Mechanical, Aerospace & Nuclear Engineering

Education:

Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dept. of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering

M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dept. of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering

B.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dept. of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering

Background:

Prof. Achille Messac is with the Mechanical, Aeronautical, and Nuclear Engineering Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He received his B.S. (1981), M.S. (1982) and Ph.D. (1986) from the Department of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at Draper Laboratory until 1994, where he led and participated in numerous research and development efforts. His research topics included deployment and multibody dynamics, multidisciplinary design and modeling, structural optimization, and Control Structure Integrated Design, the latter of which he was a pioneer in the mid-1980s.

Prof. Messac led such NASA efforts as the development of a large simulation for the dynamics and control of the Stabilized Payload Deployment System, a two-arm payload manipulator for the shuttle orbiter, for which he received an award. He also led the development of a large simulation to study the dynamics stability, the structural behavior, and the control properties of the space system composed of the space station (SS), the space shuttle, and the translating SS mobile transporter.

In 1994, he joined the Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department at Northeastern University as an Associate Professor where he led the successful reform of the academic design program. He is currently leading the development of Physical Programming, a methodology that brings optimization within the easy reach of industry engineers. Physical Programming also facilitates the effective use of optimization by experts and novices alike. He has led winning student teams in two ASME Motion Control Design Contests.

Research Interests:

Achille Messac's current primary research interest is in the area of Multidisciplinary Design Optimization and in the development of the physical programming method in particular.

His research is intended to make the application of optimization in industry settings more effective, practical and pervasive. Closely intertwined with this objective is the exploration and development of modeling methods for structural, control, and dynamical systems -- primarily for the purpose of optimal design. Emphasizing the multidisciplinary aspect of design is an important focus, including economic considerations