�㽶��ý

The Department of Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering presents the Midwest Mechanics Seminar Series featuring guest speaker Laura De Lorenzis, professor of computational mechanics at ETH Zürich in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering. De Lorenzis will present “Variational Phase-Field Modeling of Fracture: Toward Second-Generation Models.” This event is open to the public and will take place on Wednesday, November 5, from 12:45–1:45 pm in room 104 of the Stuart Building.

Abstract

Variational phase-field modeling of fracture, first introduced in 2000 for brittle fracture of homogeneous and isotropic materials under predominant mode-I loading, has since evolved in multiple directions. Extensions now cover multiaxial stress states, heterogeneous and anisotropic materials, as well as ductile, dynamic, and rate-dependent fracture. The original model was derived from a variational reformulation of Griffith’s fracture criterion through regularization. However, in many subsequent extensions, the inherent rigidity of the variational framework has prompted the development of non-variational models, which trade the theoretical and practical advantages of the variational setting for greater flexibility in reproducing experimental observations. In this presentation, we explore strategies to enrich variational phase-field models with sufficient flexibility to overcome current limitations, potentially paving the way for a second generation of variational phase-field fracture models. Preliminary results will be shown on fracture under multiaxial stress states, fracture of anisotropic materials, and dynamic fracture.

Biography

Laura De Lorenzis received her engineering degree and her Ph.D. from the university of her hometown Lecce, in southern Italy, where she first stayed as assistant and later as associate professor of solid and structural mechanics. In 2013 she moved to the TU Braunschweig, Germany, as professor and director of the Institute of Applied Mechanics. There she was founding member and first chair (2017–2020) of the Center for Mechanics, Uncertainty, and Simulation in Engineering. Since 2020 she has been a professor of computational mechanics at ETH Zürich in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering. She was a visiting scholar in several renowned institutions, including Chalmers University of Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (as holder of a Fulbright Fellowship in 2006), Leibniz University of Hannover (with an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship in 2010–2011), University of Texas at Austin, and University of Cape Town. She is the recipient of several prizes, including the RILEM L’Hermite Medal 2011, the AIMETA Junior Prize 2011, the IIFC Young Investigator Award 2012, the Euromech Solid Mechanics Fellowship 2022, the IACM Fellowship 2024, two best paper awards, and two student teaching prizes. In 2011 she was awarded a European Research Council Starting Researcher Grant. She has delivered more than 30 plenary lectures at international conferences and authored or co-authored more than 160 papers on international journals on different topics of computational and applied mechanics. Since 2023 she has served as editor of Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering.