Uncovering the Controlling Mechanisms of Crack Growth to Improve Failure Predictions
Event details
| Date | 05.12.2013 |
| Hour | 12:15 › 13:15 |
| Speaker | Prof. Derek Warner |
| Location |
GC B331
|
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
In the last century, human understanding progressed to a point where the physical laws at the foundation of many everyday experiences became known. In this century we are faced with the challenge of utilizing this fundamental knowledge to improve our ability to predict, control, and create from the world around us. In many instances, the central challenge involves spanning the vast divide between the macroscopic scale that we interact with and atomic scale where the fundamental physical laws operate.
As our understanding of the connection between the macroscopic and atomic scales continues to strengthen, structural engineering will certainly benefit. For example, a key challenge is to predict the response of structures that have been subjected to loads and/or environments for which experimental data does not exist. In this scenario, one must use a mechanical model to interpolate or extrapolate from the experimental data that is available. The truer the mechanical model is to the underlying physics that govern the response, the greater the chance that the model will be able to provide a meaningful prediction extending beyond the experimental data.
In this spirit, our group works to better understand the mechanics and mechanisms that govern the crack growth process. This seminar will specifically focus on the ductile crack growth processes in a structural aluminum alloy. In this case, crack growth is governed by the nucleation, growth, and coalescence of microvoids. Using experimental observations, insights from lower-scale atomistic modeling, and finite element simulations, we model these processes to predict material failure without artificial fitting parameters. The predictions are then critically examined in light of experimental test results.
Bibliographical Sketch: Derek Warner is currently a Visiting Professor in the Computational Solid Mechanics Laboratory at EPFL. He is on sabbatical leave from his Associate Professor appointment in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. Prior to this he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Division of Engineering at Brown University, where he worked in the Mechanics of Solids Group. He completed his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 2006. Derek’s overall research effort is aimed at understanding the connection between microscopic physical phenomena and the macroscopic deformation and failure of engineering materials by coupling cutting-edge computing technologies with state-of-the-art simulation techniques.
As our understanding of the connection between the macroscopic and atomic scales continues to strengthen, structural engineering will certainly benefit. For example, a key challenge is to predict the response of structures that have been subjected to loads and/or environments for which experimental data does not exist. In this scenario, one must use a mechanical model to interpolate or extrapolate from the experimental data that is available. The truer the mechanical model is to the underlying physics that govern the response, the greater the chance that the model will be able to provide a meaningful prediction extending beyond the experimental data.
In this spirit, our group works to better understand the mechanics and mechanisms that govern the crack growth process. This seminar will specifically focus on the ductile crack growth processes in a structural aluminum alloy. In this case, crack growth is governed by the nucleation, growth, and coalescence of microvoids. Using experimental observations, insights from lower-scale atomistic modeling, and finite element simulations, we model these processes to predict material failure without artificial fitting parameters. The predictions are then critically examined in light of experimental test results.
Bibliographical Sketch: Derek Warner is currently a Visiting Professor in the Computational Solid Mechanics Laboratory at EPFL. He is on sabbatical leave from his Associate Professor appointment in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. Prior to this he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Division of Engineering at Brown University, where he worked in the Mechanics of Solids Group. He completed his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 2006. Derek’s overall research effort is aimed at understanding the connection between microscopic physical phenomena and the macroscopic deformation and failure of engineering materials by coupling cutting-edge computing technologies with state-of-the-art simulation techniques.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- Prof. Nikolas Geroliminis & Prof. Katrin Beyer
Contact
- Prof. Jean-François Molinari