Achievement

Lauren Ferguson has worked to construct a numerical simulator for brittle fracture using a new fracture theory developed by co-PI Walton and T. Sendova, as part of the funded collaboration between Walton and Slattery. In classic linear elastic fracture theory, materials are modeled as continua, and interfacial physics neglected. This works well for stress fields in bulk material, but is highly inaccurate near crack tips. The new theory is based on extending continuum mechanics to the nanoscale, incorporating long-range intermolecular forces to obtain correct stress field data near crack tips. The new model accurately predicts fracture behavior of micro-cracks, an especially critical result for micro- and nanoscale machine components. Based on this work she has made a number of presentations, including an invited talk in the Computer Science department at New Mexico State University and a presentation at the upcoming SIAM Conference on Mathematical Aspects of Materials Science.