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Professor Hussein M. Zbib
(Treasurer)

Hussein M. Zbib (born November, 26, 1958 in Beirut, Lebanon) is the Director of the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University. He received his doctor of philosophy in Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Mechanics from Michigan Technological University in 1987 in the area of mechanics. He was appointed to his present post at the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University (WSU) in 1988, and was promoted to the rank of Professor in August 1998.

His research focuses on investigating the thermo-mechanical behavior of materials, and addresses engineering and scientific phenomena at various length scales and extreme conditions. On the smaller end of the length scale spectrum (micrometer to sub-nanometer), his work aims at understanding the physical characteristics and performance of nano-metallic structures and new generation of nano-composites for use in nano-thermo-fluidic-mechanical systems, and microelectronics and medical devices. On the larger end of the scale, he investigates the behavior of inorganic and geological materials under extreme conditions, such as shockwaves, high speed metal forming, as well as earthquake and soil engineering. His work has been continuously funded by many agencies, including the US National Science foundation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the US National Institute of Standard and Technology, Sandia National Laboratory, the US Department of Energy, to name a few. He is the author and editor of 12 books and over 180 technical articles which have been published in physics, mechanics and engineering journals.

Zbib is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology. He services on a number of editorial boards, including the International Journal of Plasticity, Journal of Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, and the Materials Science Research International, Japan , Revue de Mecanique Appliquee et Theorique, Morocco Society of Mechanics Science.

Zbib received many international awards and recognitions. To name a few, he is a Fellow member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineer, in 2003 he was elected to the Academy of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Mechanics of Michigan Tech University, and in the same year he was the recipient of the international Mechanics Achievement Award from the Japanese Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Sample of Academician's Research

(Click on pic to enlarge)

Defect-free channel in deformed irradiated Cu. Weak-beam dark-field
transmission electron microscope image shows defect-free channels formed during deformation of Cu irradiated with 600-MeV protons.

The irradiation of metals by energetic particles causes significant degradation of the mechanical properties. Such effects limit the lifetime of pressure vessels in nuclear power plants, and constrain the choice of materials for fusion-based alternative energy sources. In a 2000 Nature article Prof. Zbib and co-workers used three-dimensional multiscale simulations of irradiated metals to reveal the mechanisms underlying plastic flow localization in defect-free channels. They observed dislocation pinning by irradiation-induced clusters of defects,and found that the width of the plastic flow channels is limited by the interaction among opposing dislocation dipole segments and the remaining defect clusters.
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