Hermit

Reissner-Mindlin shell solver.

Version 0.1.0

Distribution Statement A. Approved for public release: distribution is unlimited. Approved AFRL-2026-1633

Hermit is a linear-static Reissner-Mindlin shell solver built on FEniCSx and wrapped as CSDL custom operations. Compliance, mass, center of gravity, stress and nodal fields are differentiable with respect to thickness, composite ply layup, applied loads and mesh coordinates. It supports gradient-based design of composite shell structures.

Compliance minimization of an aluminum transonic wingbox at fixed mass. Hermit sizes 111 panel thicknesses under a 30 kPa pressure load and 2.5 g self-weight, and PySLSQP reduces compliance from 356 kJ to 232 kJ in 109 iterations.

References

Luca Scotzniovsky, Nicholas C. Orndorff, Andrew H. Fletcher, Jason Kao, John T. Hwang. Large-Scale Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of a Blended Wing Body Aircraft Using Mid-Fidelity, Multi-Point Analysis. AIAA AVIATION 2026 Forum, 2026. Distribution Statement A: Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. PA# AFRL-2026-2042

DOI PDF

@inproceedings{scotzniovsky2026large,
  author = {Luca Scotzniovsky and Nicholas C. Orndorff and Andrew H. Fletcher and Jason Kao and John T. Hwang},
  title = {Large-Scale Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of a Blended Wing Body Aircraft Using Mid-Fidelity, Multi-Point Analysis},
  booktitle = {AIAA AVIATION 2026 Forum},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.2514/6.2026-4247},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2026-4247},
  note = {Metadata verification: Crossref title}
}

Bingran Wang, Michael Warner, Aoran Tian, Luca Scotzniovsky, John T. Hwang. A comparative study of uncertainty quantification methods in gust response analysis of a Lift-Plus-Cruise eVTOL aircraft wing. AIAA SCITECH 2025 Forum, 2025.

DOI PDF

@inproceedings{wang2025comparative,
  author = {Bingran Wang and Michael Warner and Aoran Tian and Luca Scotzniovsky and John T. Hwang},
  title = {A comparative study of uncertainty quantification methods in gust response analysis of a Lift-Plus-Cruise eVTOL aircraft wing},
  booktitle = {AIAA SCITECH 2025 Forum},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.2514/6.2025-2819},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2025-2819},
  note = {Metadata verification: Crossref title}
}

Bingran Wang, Seongha Jeong, Sebastiaan P. C. van Schie, Dongyeon Han, Jaeho Min, John T. Hwang. Knowledge-Guided Generative Surrogate Modeling for High-Dimensional Design Optimization Under Scarce Data. Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering, 2026.

DOI PDF

@article{wang2026knowledge,
  author = {Bingran Wang and Seongha Jeong and Sebastiaan P. C. van Schie and Dongyeon Han and Jaeho Min and John T. Hwang},
  title = {Knowledge-Guided Generative Surrogate Modeling for High-Dimensional Design Optimization Under Scarce Data},
  journal = {Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering},
  year = {2026},
  volume = {26},
  number = {7},
  doi = {10.1115/1.4070934},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4070934},
  note = {Metadata verification: Crossref title}
}

Michael Warner, John T. Hwang. Reduced Jacobian Supervision for Data-Efficient Operator Learning in High-Dimensional Design Spaces. AIAA AVIATION 2026 Forum, 2026. Distribution Statement A: Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. PA# AFRL-2026-2144

DOI PDF

@inproceedings{warner2026reduced,
  author = {Michael Warner and John T. Hwang},
  title = {Reduced Jacobian Supervision for Data-Efficient Operator Learning in High-Dimensional Design Spaces},
  booktitle = {AIAA AVIATION 2026 Forum},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.2514/6.2026-4806},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2026-4806},
  note = {Metadata verification: Crossref title}
}

Michael A. P. Warner, John T. Hwang. Structured Reduced-Basis Neural Operators for PDEs on Complex Geometries. ASME IDETC/CIE 2026 · DETC2026-194246, 2026. Distribution Statement A: Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. PA# AFRL-2026-1143 Manuscript
PDF
```
@inproceedings{warner2026structured,
  author = {Michael A. P. Warner and John T. Hwang},
  title = {Structured Reduced-Basis Neural Operators for PDEs on Complex Geometries},
  booktitle = {ASME IDETC/CIE 2026},
  year = {2026},
  note = {Paper No. DETC2026-194246}
}
```

Ru Xiang, Sebastiaan P. C. van Schie, Luca Scotzniovsky, Jiayao Yan, David Kamensky, John T. Hwang. Automating adjoint sensitivity analysis for multidisciplinary models involving partial differential equations. Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization (in press 2024, per CV), 2024.

DOI PDF

@article{xiang2024automating,
  author = {Ru Xiang and Sebastiaan P. C. van Schie and Luca Scotzniovsky and Jiayao Yan and David Kamensky and John T. Hwang},
  title = {Automating adjoint sensitivity analysis for multidisciplinary models involving partial differential equations},
  journal = {Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization (in press 2024, per CV)},
  year = {2024},
  doi = {10.21203/rs.3.rs-4265983/v1},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4265983/v1},
  note = {Metadata verification: Crossref title}
}

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