Thesis supervisor: András Árpád Sipos
Location of studies (in Hungarian): Department of Mechanics, Materials & Structures Abbreviation of location of studies: BME
Description of the research topic:
Cracking patterns arising during fracture under gradually applied loads are interesting markers of past (stress and strain) states due to the irreversible nature of fracture. Modeling of the formation and evolution of cracks has been a distinguished and interesting problem since the beginning of the 20th century in solid mechanics. This research aims to investigate the interplay between the loading history and the observable cracks via the methods of continuum mechanics.
We restrict our investigations to brittle and quasi-brittle materials (like rocks and concrete) and use the framework of variational brittle fracture for the analytical and numerical studies. Publications emphasize that variational brittle fracture is a perfect tool to model the evolution of multiple cracks that mutually influence growth. We aim to support this claim by applying a previously developed continuation code for governing equations possessing an irreversibility constraint. Some simple problems are collected in the research plan, which can be studied by variational brittle fracture.
Analysis of these problems will provide new input for theoretical investigations, help structural diagnostics to explain observed cracking patterns and will provide a new approach for faulting under triaxial stresses in structural geology.
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