Dr. Pablo Seleson
Computer Science and Mathematics Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Computational Fracture Modeling with Peridynamics

ABSTRACT:Fracture prediction is an ongoing challenge in materials science and computational science and engineering. Peridynamics offers a new framework for computational modeling of fractures which overcomes this challenge through governing equations that naturally represent material discontinuities. Peridynamics is a nonlocal reformulation of classical continuum mechanics suitable for material failure and damage simulation. This presentation will focus on the computational aspects of peridynamics with applications. We will provide an overview of the peridynamic theory of solid mechanics, its computational features, and its capabilities in modeling crack propagation in isotropic and anisotropic media, including brittle glass, fiber-reinforced composites, and polycrystalline ceramics.

BIOGRAPHY: Dr. Pablo Seleson is a Research Scientist in the Computational and Applied Mathematics Group at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He joined ORNL as an Alston S. Householder Fellow in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division. Dr. Seleson received both his Bachelor's degree in Physics and in Philosophy and his Master's degree in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2002 and 2006, respectively. He obtained his Ph.D. in Computational Science from Florida State University in 2010, under the advisement of Prof. Max Gunzburger. After graduation, he joined the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (previously named Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES)) at The University of Texas at Austin as an ICES Postdoctoral Fellow under the supervision of Prof. J. Tinsley Oden, where he also worked in close collaboration with the Computer Science Research Institute at Sandia National Laboratories. Dr. Seleson's research focuses on multiscale materials modeling and on mathematical and computational analysis of peridynamics and related nonlocal models with application to computational fracture modeling. Dr. Seleson is an editorial board member of the Journal of Peridynamics and Nonlocal Modeling, the Vice-Chair of the Large Scale Structural Systems and Optimal Design technical thrust area of the U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics (USACM), and a member of the Computational Mechanics Committee of the Engineering Mechanics Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).