James Sherwood

Expertise

Sports Engineering; Composite Materials; Textile Mechanics; Finite Element Analysis

Research Interests

Sports Engineering; Composite Materials; Textiles; Finite Element Methods

Education

• Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, University of Cincinnati, 1987
• M.S. in Applied Mechanics, University of Cincinnati, 1977
• B.S. in Engineering Science, University of Cincinnati, 1976
  

Biosketch

James A. Sherwood is dean emeritus of the Francis College of Engineering and professor emeritus of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He has more than 40 years of experience in research, engineering analysis, and academic service. His expertise includes sports engineering, composite materials, textile mechanics, and finite element analysis.

Sherwood is co-director of the Advanced Composite Materials and Textile Research Laboratory, where his work focuses on the structural behavior of composites, the relationship between manufacturing processes and structural stiffness, composite forming, finite element modeling, and the characterization of textiles used in fabric-reinforced composites.

He founded the UML Baseball Research Center in 1999 with seed funding from Major League Baseball and Rawlings Sporting Goods. The center has worked with Major League Baseball and sporting-goods companies on wood-bat durability, baseball compliance, and bat-ball performance. He also leads the NIST FIBERS Consortium, which addresses challenges in U.S. composites manufacturing. His research has received more than $15 million in funding from federal agencies, Major League Baseball, the NCAA, and sporting-goods companies and he has published more than 300 journal and conference papers.

Selected Publications

1. Barry CP, Willis DJ, Bergeron K, Noetscher G, Sherwood JA. Fluid-Structure Interaction of Parachute Suspension Lines Using LS-DYNA's Incompressible Computational Fluid Dynamics Solver.  Results in Engineering, 110807 DOI: 10.1016/j.rineng.2026.110807
2. Johnson SB, Kothari A, Griffith DT, Sherwood J. Development of user-friendly design-driven techno-economic modeling tool to enable reductions in wind blade manufacturing costs. SAMPE Journal. 2025;61(3):28. DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2023.118945
3. Barry CP, Bergeron K, Stapleton SE, Willis DJ, Noetscher G, Charrette C, Sherwood JA. The investigation of the mechanical behavior of a braided parachute suspension line using a mesomechanical finite element model. Textiles. 2025;5(2):10. DOI: 10.3390/textiles5020010
4. Barry CP, Olson BG, Willis DJ, Bergeron K, Charrette C, Noetscher GM, Amirkhizi A, Sherwood JA. The experimental characterization of the torsional and transverse stiffnesses of a braided parachute suspension line. Journal of Engineered Fibers and Fabrics. 2024;19:1-16. DOI: 10.1177/15589250241291167
5. Johnson SB, Chetan M, Griffith DT, Sherwood J. A design-driven wind blade manufacturing model to identify opportunities to reduce wind blade costs. Renewable Energy. 2023;215:118945. DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2023.118945
6. Sherwood JA, Frost CC. Constitutive modeling and simulation of energy absorbing polyurethane foam under impact loading. Polymer Engineering & Science. 1992;32(16):1138-1146. DOI: 10.1002/pen.760321611
7. Jauffres D, Sherwood JA, Morris CD, Chen J. Discrete mesoscopic modeling for the simulation of woven-fabric reinforcement forming. International Journal of Material Forming. 2010;3(Suppl 2):1205-1216. DOI: 10.1007/s12289-009-0646-y
8. Gorczyca-Cole JL, Sherwood JA, Chen J. A friction model for thermostamping commingled glass-polypropylene woven fabrics. Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing. 2007;38(2):393-406. DOI: 10.1016/j.compositesa.2006.03.006
9. Dangora LM, Mitchell CJ, Sherwood JA. Predictive model for the detection of out-of-plane defects formed during textile-composite manufacture. Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing. 2015;78:102-112. DOI: 10.1016/j.compositesa.2015.07.011
10. Fetfatsidis KA, Jauffres D, Sherwood JA, Chen J. Characterization of the tool/fabric and fabric/fabric friction for woven-fabric composites during the thermostamping process. International Journal of Material Forming. 2013;6(2):209-221. DOI: 10.1007/s12289-011-1072-5
11. Boisse P, Akkerman R, Carlone P, Karger L, Lomov SV, Sherwood JA. Advances in composite forming through 25 years of ESAFORM. International Journal of Material Forming. 2022;15(3):39. DOI: 10.1007/s12289-022-01682-8
12. Sherwood JA. Finite element modelling in sports. In: Allen T, Alderson A, Godfrey A, Knudson D, Webster J, Seo K, editors. Routledge Handbook of Sports Technology and Engineering. 2nd ed. London: Taylor & Francis; 2025.