Speaker
Gilles Francfort
(Flatiron Institue)
Description
After nearly thirty years, the ``variational approach to fracture" is very much alive both in the mechanics and mathematical communities. Yet a host of issues are emerging that obfuscate the elegance of the original theory.
I will review a few of those, show the shortcomings of the existing sharp theories and the additional hurdles introduced by the phase field approximations. I will comment on what I now view as unwarranted departures, even if mathematically sound, like cohesive fracture or the various kinds of models that introduce viscosity as a dissipation mechanism during jumps.
I will hopefully propose a nascent brittle theory which unfortunately would require a complete revisiting of the existing body of mathematical results.
Author
Gilles Francfort
(Flatiron Institue)