Seminar Schedule – Fall 2017

Thursday, September 28, 2017
Time: 3:30-5:00 PM
Place: WRW 102

Double Well Potentials and Nonlocal Brittle Fracture Modeling

Robert Lipton, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA

The dynamic fracture of brittle solids is a particularly interesting collective interaction connecting both large and small length scales. Apply enough stress or strain to a sample of brittle material and one eventually snaps bonds at the atomistic scale leading to fracture of the macroscopic specimen. We discuss a nonlocal model for calculating dynamic fracture. The force interaction is derived from a double well strain energy density function, resulting in a non-monotonic material model. The material properties change in response to evolving internal forces eliminating the need for a separate phase field to model the fracture set. The model can be viewed as a regularized fracture model. In the limit of zero nonlocal interaction, the model recovers a sharp interface evolution characterized by the classic Griffith free energy of brittle fracture with elastic deformation satisfying the linear elastic wave equation off the crack set. We conclude with a numerical analysis of the model which is joint work with Prashant Jha.

For further information, please contact Dr. Ravi-Chandar at ravi@utexas.edu or 512-471-4213.