Computational Mechanics of Building Materials

Our research focuses on the development and application of cutting-edge numerical models for material deformation and failure, and on the understanding of the link between small-scale material characteristics and their macroscopic mechanical properties. Our research activities are at the interface between physics, engineering, materials science and scientific computing. We use high-performance computing (HPC) to build physics-based quantitative models of complex materials, interfaces and structures, and study how they break.

Most biological and engineered materials and interfaces are of heterogeneous nature, which directly affects their macroscopic mechanical properties. Using our numerical models, we have the opportunity to analyze how well designed microstructures lead to improved macro-scale behavior, to test model assumptions used in theoretical approaches, and to complement experimental studies by providing precise numerical measurements for comparison and interpretation.

We apply our numerical models to study a variety of engineering problems, which include the dynamic propagation of cracks in heterogeneous materials, the mechanics of laboratory earthquakes, fragility of bone-collagen due to increased fibril crosslinking, and toughness properties of frictional materials.