Dr. Bryan Mac Donald,
B.Eng. M.Sc. Ph.D. MIEI
Director: Centre for Intelligent Design, Eng. Analysis and Simulation

Biography

Dr.Bryan Mac Donald received a B.Eng. in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Limerick in 1994. Studies and Research in the field of Aerospace Structures and Materials lead to the award of a M.Sc. from the University of Limerick 1995.  He took up a position as a technical trainer with Ericsson Systems Expertise in 1995 and subsequently took a position as a Mechanical Engineer in Dublin Bus. In 1997 he took up his current position in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at DCU. Research in the area of non-linear finite element analysis of complex metal forming processes led to the award of Ph.D. from Dublin City University in 2000.

Research

Dr. Mac Donald's main research areas are:

• The Application of Non-linear Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to complex engineering problems.
• Aircraft Engineering
• CAD/CAM/CAE
• Artificial Intelligence in Design and Manufacture
• Design of Medical Devices

In recent years his research has focused mainly on the analysis and optimisation of metal forming operations using FEA, analysis of high energy impact to aircraft structures, design analysis of medical devices and improving the accessability of CAD by incorporating AI techniques.

A list of recent publications is online.

Teaching

Since joining DCU Dr. Mac Donald has involved in the development of all courses taught by the school of mechanical and manufacturing engineering. His teaching is primarily in computer aided design. He currently teaches computer aided design analysis techniques (FEA) and numerical methods to 4th year undegraduate engineers and to M.Sc. students. He also teaches complex structure design analysis techniques on the M.Sc. in Computer Aided Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering course.