Computational Methods for Materials and Structures  : It’s a Matter of Scales

Alessandro Fascetti
School of Engineering
The University of WaikatoHamilton,
New Zealand

Computational methods have gained increasing attention in engineering and materials science applications, as they allow for the prediction of the failure of systems that would be prohibitive to test experimentally(either for their size or the external actions to simulate). The exponential increase in computational power recorded in the last decade opened up tremendous possibilities for the numerical modelling of materials and structures, and the increase is bound to speed up further in the next years. Thismeans that it will virtually be possible to simulate every molecule in a bridge or a medical implant much sooner than we think. Until that day finally arrives, current practices to take into account physical phenomena that happen at such small length scales revolve around the concept of multiscaling: we can solve the problem in exam at different observation scales and bridge the information between them by means of appropriate mathematical theories. This technique allows for a substantial reduction in thecomputational cost without compromising on the physical description of the processes inexam. In this talk, we will overview some applications of different multiscale techniques for different infrastructure materialsapplications. Strictly tied to the numerical models,we will discussmultiscale experimental procedurestocomplement the computational methods. This novel methodology allows for the quantification of the fine-scale mechanical parametersof the material, which can be used as input for the model in order to simulate its macroscopic response.Being the dimensions of the so obtained specimens small, the test setup is rather simple and economically advantageous.

Bio

Dr. Alessandro Fascetti received his Master’s degree in 2012 in Civil Engineering from the University of Rome “Sapienza”.He obtained his Ph.D. from the same institutionin 2016. During his studies,he spent18 months as a Visiting Scholar atthe University of California, Davis. In 2016 he became a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Multiscale Computational Mechanics Laboratory (MCML) of Vanderbilt University in Nashville (TN).He joined The University of Waikato in 2018 as a faculty memberin Civil Engineering. Dr. Fascetti conducts research on multiscale modeling of different kinds of compositematerialsused in structureand infrastructureapplications. His workfocuseson failuremechanics as well as durability aspects, combining multiscale experimental information for the validation of the numerical models