Advances and Challenges in Computational Modeling of Material Failure: From Single to Multi-Scale Simulations/Wei HU

Date: 31^st Oct. 2018 Wednesday 15:30-17:00 

Venue: N412, Meng Min Wei SciTech Building, Tsinghua University

Speaker 

Dr. Wei HU
Livermore Software Technology Corporation (LSTC), USA

Abstract

Numerical modeling of material failure remains a formidable challenge to the computational mechanics" community. Apparently, the pure continuum-based numerical methods are not able toaccurately to predict the material failure takes place at the finer scale. Inother words, the C¹-continuity assumption in most finite element methods is inadequate to describe the kinematic discontinuity of displacement fields at the macro-scale for material separation analysis. In this talk, three numerical methods exhibiting strong displacement discontinuity for single-scale material failure analysis are introduced to by pass the numerical limitations of conventional finite element methods. Smoothed Particle Galerkin (SPG) method, Peridynamics and Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM) are presented to model fracture in solid, composite and shell respectively. On the other hand, while most multi-scale methods are focused on the models of intact materials, their application in material failure analysis is very rare and has become an emergent need for industrial applications. In contrast to the single-scale approach, the multi-scale approach encompasses material failure modeling with better scale information and relevant physics. In this talk, two multi-scale methods are introduced to model the material failure in specific industrial applications such as the joint failure in crashworthiness and the failure in composite materials.

About Speaker 

Dr. Wei Hu received his Ph.D. degree in structural engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2007. Before that, he graduated in engineering mechanics from Tsinghua University in 2003. In 2009, Dr. Hu joined Livermore SoftwareTechnology Corporation (LSTC) and became a senior scientist and team leader in charge of advanced CAE development on the precision manufacturing application in LS-DYNA. The LS-DYNA code is one of the widely used commercial software in the automotive, aerospace and defense industries to analyze vehicle, aircraft and weapon system designs.

Dr.Hu’s main research interest and development focus are advanced finite element methods including adaptivity, meshfree/particle method, multi-scale modeling and their applications in solid and structural analysis. As a senior member of Computational and Multi-scale Mechanics Group (CMMG) in LSTC, Dr. Hu and his colleague have an active research program to bring the concept of advanced CAE and virtual material/mechanical testing to the modern vehicle design and manufacturing through multiscale computation. CMMG has been working closely with major automotive companies including Ford, GM, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Honda and Nissan for solving challenging manufacturing simulations involving material failure modeling.