News
November 2025
Asif Jalal defends his doctoral thesis. Congratulations Dr. Asif Jalal!
Sher Afgan defends his doctoral thesis titled “Biobased coatings and inhibitors for mitigating chloride induced corrosion in aqueous and non-aqueous environments”. Congratulations Dr. Sher Afgan!
Dr. Afgan with his doctoral committee members after defense & Dr. Jalal with his doctoral committee members after defense
Surajit Dey received NSF travel fellowship to attend IMECE 2025 at Memphis, TN. He presented “Shear-Dominant Ductile Fracture Under Uniaxial Tension Loading in Additively Manufactured Stainless Steel 316L”. Congratulations, Surajit!
Our paper titled “Microvoid Characterization in Structural Steels Under Ultralow Cycle Fatigue: Fractographic Insights and Modeling” is now published in Fatigue & Fracture of Engineering Materials & Structures. Congratulations, Surajit!
Our paper titled “Decoupling early-age free shrinkage and restraint effects in 3D printed concrete using Digital Image Correlation” is now published in Cement and Concrete Composites. Congratulations, Aniket and Avinaya!
September 2025
Our project is one of the three winners of Consider Corn Challenge: https://ncga.com/stay-informed/media/in-the-news/article/2025/09/ncga-honors-three-winners-driving-innovation-in-consider-corn-challenge-v
Here is Ravi Yellavajjala’s acceptance speech at the Bio Innovations Midwest conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfLc5f4VJw0&t=490s
August 2025
Clara Chaves Azevedo from ASU, Michael Attson from TOCC, and Fawad Khan from NUST, Pakistan, completed their summer internships.
July 2025
Our article titled “Corrosion Mitigation Using Biobased Polyols in a Crude Oil Simulant Environment” has been accepted for publication in the ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering.
Dharan Arumugam defended his doctoral thesis titled “Interpretable and efficient data-driven models for microstructural characterization and metal fracture”. Congratulations Dr. Dharan Arumugam.
Maedeh Hesami defended her M.S. thesis titled “Starch-based hydrogel synthesis, characterization, and applications”. Congratulations, Maedeh!
Farewell for Dharan and Maedeh.
June 2025
Our paper titled “Starch-based Hydrogel Powder for Enhanced Dust Suppression” has been accepted for publication in the Cleaner Engineering and Technology. Congratulations, Maedeh!
Gururaj Acharya completed his postdoctoral training at the DAMS group and is now moving to Penn State University for another postdoc opportunity.
Gururaj’s farewell
May 2025
Clara Chaves Azevedo from ASU, Michael Attson from TOCC, and Fawad Khan from NUST, Pakistan, joined the DAMS group for summer internships.
Our paper titled “Trustworthy Contextual Neural Networks for Deciphering Fracture in Metals” is published in Fatigue and Fracture in Materials and Structures. Congratulations, Dharan!
March 2025
Our paper titled “A data-driven geometry-specific surrogate model for forecasting the load–displacement behavior until ductile fracture” is accepted for publication in the International Journal of Fracture. Congratulations, Surajit.
January 2025
Our paper titled “Super Absorbent Polymers (SAPs) as concentration preservers in brine deicers for enhanced ice melting capacity” is accepted for publication in the Journal of Infrastructure Preservation and Resilience. Congratulations Gage and Maedeh!
December 2024
A provisional patent was filed for a novel dust suppressant that was co-developed by Ravi and Maedeh.
Our paper titled “Automated Approaches for the Early Stage Distinguishing of Palmer Amaranth from Waterhemp” is now accepted for Frontiers in Agronomy. Akhil and Dharanidharan are the student co-authors. Prof. Peters from North Dakota State University co-led this effort. Congratulations to the team!
November 2024
Ravi presented “A Long Short Term Memory Network-Based Surrogate Model for Predicting Ductile Fracture” at the International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition. Surajit is the first author of this poster. Congratulations, Surajit!
Ravi Yellavajjala was recognized as an ASME Rising Star for the distinguished achievements in mechanics of materials..
October 2024
Our paper titled “Super Absorbent Polymers (SAPs) as Concentration Preservers in Brine Deicers for Enhanced Ice Melting Capacity” was accepted for the Journal of Infrastructure Preservation and Resilience. Gage and Maedeh are the student authors. Congratulations, Gage and Maedeh!
Prof. Rajan presented “Using neural network to improve failure predictions” at the 2024 American Society for Composites Technical Conference in San Diego. Ashutosh and Dharanidharan are the student co-authors. Congratulations to the team!
August 2024
Our paper titled “On point cloud failure criterion predictions” was accepted for Journal of Composite Materials. Ashutosh and Dharanidharan are the student authors and Prof. Subby Rajan led this effort. Congratulations to the team!
Our paper titled “Mitigating Corrosion Damage in Steel Employing Biobased Erythritol and Xylitol as Corrosion Inhibitions” was accepted for the ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering. Sher is the first author of this paper. Congratulations, Sher!
July 2024
Ravi presented “Erythritol for Internal Corrosion Inhibition in Crude Oil Pipelines”, in the 2024 Utility Engineering & Surveying Institute (UESI) of ASCE Pipelines Conference that was held in Calgary, Canada. Sher is the first author of this paper. Congratulations, Sher!
June 2024
Ravi Yellavajjala is now an editorial board member for the Journal of Infrastructure Preservation and Resilience.
Gururaj Acharya joined the DAMS lab as a postdoctoral researcher. He was a postdoc at IISC Bangalore prior to this appointment and he will help the team in the development of new corrosion inhibitors.
May 2024
Ravi presented “Data-driven Gurson-Tvergaard-Needleman Model for Ductile Fracture” and “Long Short-Term Memory network based surrogate model for predicting ductile fracture in ASTM A992 structural steel” at the 2024 Engineering Mechanics Institution Conference at Chicago. Dharanidharan and Surajit are the first authors of these papers.
April 2024
Our paper titled “Effect of fiber reinforcement, mineral admixtures, and air entrainment on the fire performance of concrete: A review”, is accepted for publication in Construction and Building Materials. Congratulations, Dr. Sajid and thanks for the collaboration.
March 2024
Our paper titled “Sustainable Bio-based Hydrogel as an Alternative Air Entrainment Agent in Cement-Based Materials”, is accepted for publication in ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering. Congratulations, Asif!
January 2024
Muhammad Rafiul Mahdi joined the DAMS lab as a doctoral graduate student. He will work on sustainable construction materials.
December 2023
Gage Merkel graduates with an MS in Structural Engineering. Congratulations Gage!
November 2023
Sher presented “Employing Biobased Coatings for In-situ Repair of Damaged Epoxy Coated Rebars in Concrete Pavements” at the 2023 International Road Federation Global R2T Conference & Exhibition held in Tempe, AZ.
Asif presented “Enhancing Pavement Durability through the Application of Superabsorbent Polymers and Cornstarch-Based Hydrogels as Internal Curing Agents” at the 2023 International Road Federation Global R2T Conference & Exhibition held in Tempe, AZ.
Ravi moderated the technical sessions “Advances in Concrete Materials” and “Innovations in pavements and materials” at the 2023 International Road Federation Global R2T Conference & Exhibition held in Tempe, AZ.
Our paper titled “Deciphering the Fracture Initiation Mechanism in Additive Manufactured 17-4 Steel Employing Statistical Analysis of Tomography Data” is now accepted for publication in the ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering. Congratulations, Anik and Surajit!
October 2023
Ravi Presented “Ductile Fracture Prediction in Metals: Applications for Pipelines,” “Biobased Corrosion Inhibitors to Mitigate Internal Corrosion in Crude Oil Pipelines,” and “Corrosion Detection Under Varying Illumination and Wetting Conditions: Applications for Pipelines” at the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration R&D meeting held in Arlington, VA.
Asif and Sher conducted a “Probability and Statistics for Gaming” outreach activity developed by Ravi for 61 Ben Franklin Middle School (Fargo, ND) students as a part of the BRAIN Stem workshop organized by the North Dakota ASCE Section.
September 2023
Our paper titled “Enhancement of Corrosion Resistance and Bond Strength in Rebars Employing Abrasives-Infused Soy-Protein Isolate Coatings” is now accepted for publication in Construction and Building Materials. Congratulations Sher!
August 2023
Ravi introduces a new graduate course titled “Numerical Methods in Civil Engineering.” He will cover both linear algebra and applied statistics to help graduate students jump-start their research in computational and experimental studies.
Archived News
