In this talk Dr. Bourdin will start with a modern interpretation of Griffith's classical criterion as a variational principle for a free discontinuity energy and will recall some of the milestones in its analysis. Then he will introduce the phase-field approximation per se and describe its numerical implementation. He will illustrate how phase-field models have led to major breakthroughs in the predictive simulation of fracture in complex situations. He will show how this applies to current issues, including crack nucleation in nominally brittle materials, fracture of heterogeneous materials, and inverse problems.

Hybrid: EH 1084 and via Zoom link Speaker(s): Blaise Bourdin (McMaster University)