Paulina Diaz-Montiel, PhD

Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering

• PhD, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO - SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY
  
• MS, SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY
  
• BS, CETY'S UNIVERSITY (MEXICALI, MEXICO)
  

Paulina Díaz-Montiel, PhD, is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of San Diego. Her expertise is in structural mechanics and composite materials, with a focus on manufacturing, testing, experimental mechanics and finite element analysis to study the progressive failure of materials and structures.

Dr. Díaz-Montiel’s research interests include investigating the effect of manufacturing defects on the progressive failure of polymeric composites at various scales and under different loading conditions. Her work also studies the effect of defects on the progressive failure of sustainable composites, as well as damage characterization and quantification in composites using non-destructive evaluation techniques.

Dr. Díaz-Montiel earned her PhD in Structural Engineering from the University of California San Diego - San Diego State University joint doctoral program. She holds an MS in Aerospace Engineering from San Diego State University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from CETYS University (Mexicali, México). She is an active member of the American Society for Composites and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Scholarly Work

• With Gabriela Gonzalez Ayala, Jarod Heise, Melih Papila, and Satchi Venkataraman, "Failure Mechanisms of Composite Laminates with Embedded Ply Waviness under Tension," 2024.
• With S. Venkataraman and H. Kim , "Experimental Investigations of Carbon-Epoxy Composites with Waviness Under Cyclic Bending," AIAA Scitech Forum, Virtual, San Diego, CA, 2022.
• With J. Heise, S. Venkataraman, and H. Kim , "The Effect of Ply Waviness on Damage Initiation and Growth in Composites Under Fully Reversed Cyclic Loading," Proceedings of the American Society for Composites-37 Technical Conference, 2022.
• With L. W. Escalona-Galvis and S. Venkataraman , "Kriging and Dimension Reduction Techniques for Delamination Detection in Composites using Electrical Resistance Tomography," Engineering Optimization, 2021.
• With S. Venkataraman and H. Kim , "Modeling Polymer-Matrix Composites with Fiber Waviness Defects under Cyclic Loading," AIAA Scitech Forum p. 1232, VIRTUAL, 2021.
• With S. Venkataraman and H. Kim , "The Effects of Plasticity Mechanisms on Micromechanics of Composites with Waviness Defects under Compression," Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Structure, 2021.
• With S. Venkataraman , "Numerical Investigation of the Evolution of Fiber Kinking Damage in Composites Under Cyclic Loading," AIAA Scitech Forum, San Diego, CA, 2019.
• With A. Fontanelli and S. Venkataraman , "Bearing Failure Predictions of Composite Bolted Joints using Continuum Damage Model," AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference p. 0978, Kissimmee, FL, 2018.
• With L.W. Escalona-Galvis and S. Venkataraman , "Optimum Electrode Configurations for Two-Probe, Four-Probe and Multi-Probe Schemes in Electrical Resistance Tomography for Delamination Identification in Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composites," Journal of Composites Science, vol. 2, 2, p. 29, 2018.
• With L. Escalona and S. Venkataraman , "Exploration of Surrogate Models for Inverse Identification of Delamination Cracks in Composites using Electrical Resistance Tomography," 58th AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC SDM Conference p. 0199, Grapevine, TX, 2017.

View more scholarship details

Office Hours

• ENGR 101
• MENG 494