Biography

Zhiliang Zhang received his BSc and MSc degrees in Structural Engineering from Tongji University in 1985 and 1988, respectively, and his PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from Lappeenranta University of Technology in 1994. Before being appointed as a full Professor of Mechanics and Materials at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2003, he had worked at the largest independent research organization in Scandinavia, SINTEF, Trondheim, Norway, for 9 years, and played a central role in building up the competence of the Fracture Mechanics Group to an international level. He was a visiting scientist at Harvard University, 2000-2001, a Changjiang visiting professor at University of Science and Technology Beijing, 2010, a JSPS fellow at Kyoto University, 2011, and a visiting scholar at California Institute of Technology, 2017-2018. He has been a supervisor and co-supervisor of more than 51 PhDs and post docs candidates, and 45 master students since 2005.

Professor Zhang founded the NTNU Nanomechanical Lab in 2006. He was elected as the chairman for organizing the 20th European Conference on Fracture, 2014, by the Council of the European Structural Integrity Society (ESIS) and was an executive committee member of the ESIS from 2010-2022. Professor Zhang is an elected member of the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences and an elected ESIS Fellow. He has been doctoral thesis external examiner to Paris Tech (France), UNIVERSITY TOULOUSE III (France), Bauhaus University Weimar (Germany), Warwick University (UK), Leeds university (UK), Loughborough University (UK), Aalto University (Finland), Tampere University of Technology (Finland), Lappeenranta University (Finland), and National University of Singapore (Singapore). He holds titles of Academic promotion and faculty recruitment reviewer to Imperial College (UK), UCL (UK), University of Michigan (USA), University of Toledo (USA), Rice University (USA), Aalto University (Finland), Oulu University (Finland), Monash University (Australia), Tsinghua University (China). He has been an expert review panel member to Academy of Finland, Dutch research Council and Swiss National Science Foundation.

Professor Zhang’s research group at NTNU Nanomechanical Lab focuses on damage mechanics, fracture mechanics, additive manufacturing, hydrogen embrittlement, multi-physical testing method development, anti-icing materials and nanomechanics by using combined experimental and multiscale computational approaches.

His main contribution has been related to the development of following methods, theories and models: the complete Gurson model and physics-based method for damage parameter identification; accurate and efficient numerical algorithms for implementing porous plasticity models; new methods for determining the mechanical properties of materials with limited volume; the J-Q-M framework for describing the geometry and material mismatch constraints at a crack tip; mechanism-based predictive models for hydrogen embrittlement; fracture-mechanics based design of super-low ice adhesion surfaces; novel deposition patterns for reducing residual stresses in 3D printed components; machine-learning based real-time prediction method of thermal history in 3D printing; new understanding of nanoscale deformation and fracture mechanisms.

During the last 15 years Prof. Zhang has been the project leader at NTNU for 14 externally funded projects with a total budget over 12 million Euro. He has published his work as the corresponding author in top journals such as Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Science, Materials Horizons, Nano Letters, Nature Communications, Nanoscale, SMALL, Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), Acta Materialia, Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids (JMPS), Polymer.

Professor Zhang currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief based on Europe for Engineering Fracture Mechanics, an international flagship journal for fracture mechanics from 1968.