• Prof. Oñate was honoured for a 45-year career of pioneering contributions to engineering in the field of computational mechanics.
• This marks the second consecutive year that an IMDEA Materials-affiliated researcher has been awarded this prize, following Prof. Javier LLorca’s recognition in 2023.

Prof. Eugenio Oñate, President of the IMDEA Materials Board of Trustees, has witnessed remarkable advancements and challenges in computational mechanics over nearly 50 years.

But more than an observer, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) researcher and founder of the International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE) has been at the forefront of many of the field’s most significant developments.

This outstanding trajectory was recently recognized when Prof. Oñate was awarded the Leonardo Torres Quevedo National Prize in Engineering and Architecture 2024, presented by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities.

For Prof. Oñate, the award came as a pleasant surprise. “I am very grateful to those who nominated me and to the evaluation committee for selecting my candidacy among others that were surely equally deserving,” he said.

This achievement also marks another notable milestone for IMDEA Materials: it’s the second consecutive year that a researcher affiliated with the Institute has received this prestigious recognition, following Prof. Javier LLorca receiving the award in 2023. Prof. LLorca was the founding director of the Institute and is its current scientific director.

Since beginning his career in the 1970s, Prof. Oñate has observed a radical transformation in the field of computational mechanics. “The biggest differences are in computational resources, which have grown in ways unimaginable to those of us who started in numerical methods,” he said.

“We also now have the ability to capture and store massive amounts of data in remote servers, which we can later manage and utilise by combining computational models with artificial intelligence (AI).”

Currently, Prof. Oñate focuses his research on developing new mathematical models and numerical methods that address certain stability and precision barriers. These help to solve dynamic engineering problems quickly and reliably through so-called explicit time integration methods.

“The practical aim is to make very fast, cost-effective predictions of time-dependent system responses (such as heat propagation, fluid dynamics, acoustic and seismic waves, structural dynamics, etc.),” Prof. Oñate explains.

Additionally, he is developing new methods and strategies for the predictive management of territories and infrastructure (bridges, roads, buildings, dams, etc.), aiming to combine predictive methods, based on computational mechanics, with data obtained from sensor networks, digital devices, and AI techniques.

Prof. Oñate emphasises that the impact of computational mechanics extends to critical areas of innovation such as biomedical engineering, additive manufacturing, and energy sustainability, among others.

“The emergence of advanced materials with extraordinary functional properties is a challenge for developing new computational models applicable to systems that incorporate these materials,” Prof. Oñate notes.

“However, to harness these possibilities, we need, more than ever, to train engineers capable of delving into one or more of these three pillars: observing the behaviour of the world around us with the help of experiments, mathematical modelling, and computational methods, without losing sight of the broader context.”

Prof. Oñate underscores that these awards highlight the impact of research conducted at R&D centers in Spain, which “require increasing institutional support to compete at the European level in the training of new PhDs and in advancing science and engineering.”

“I hope this award helps to raise awareness of the importance of the work done at centers like IMDEA Materials, others such as CIMNE where I am a researcher, and at universities, and that it leads to stronger and more decisive support for scientific activities in our country.”

“Specifically, to improve resources for doctoral training programs, which I consider currently less competitive than those in other leading European countries,” he concluded.