Details
MAE Seminar: Intelligent Structures: Turning Flexibility into Functionality
Date: September 1, 2026
Time: 12:50 PM Location: MAE-A 303
Dr. Patrick Musgrave
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Florida
Abstract
Flexible structures are often governed by nonlinear dynamics, and when submerged in fluids they must contend with complex fluid-structure interactions. However, what if these nonlinearities and fluid-structure interactions are not a challenge? Instead, what if these complex dynamics could become a benefit? This talk will present a vision for Intelligent Structures that can think and respond to the flow by turning their flexibility into function. On flight vehicles, responding to unsteady aerodynamics such as vortices and shocks is a significant challenge due to the high sensor density and large computational cost required to sense and process the flow. This talk will present our research into Mechanical Neural Networks that harness the nonlinear dynamics of vibrating structures to sense and process environmental information with minimal digital computation. On underwater vehicles, achieving high maneuverability and stability in the coastal environment is a challenge due to the punishing waves and currents. This talk will present our ongoing work to realize Soft Robotic Swimmers which harness a flexible body with distributed muscles to achieve the efficiency, maneuverability, and adaptability of biological swimmers.
Biography
Patrick Musgrave is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Florida. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech and prior to joining UF was a research scientist at the US Naval Research Laboratory. He leads the Fluids and Adaptive Structures (FASt) Lab with the vision to realize intelligent structures that can think and respond to flow. His research embodies actuation, sensing, processing and control directly into the flexible body to achieve Intelligent Structures such as Soft Robotic Swimmers, Mechanical Neural Networks, and Ocean Wave Energy Harvesters. Dr. Musgrave’s research has been supported by AFOSR, NSF, and DOE; he is the recipient of an AFOSR Young Investigator award and an NSF CAREER award; and he has been named a Rising Star in Engineering by the Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine of Florida
Faculty Host: Dr. Larry Ukeiley