AEM Seminar: Friday, November 7th - Midwest Mechanics Speaker: Prof Laura De Lorenzis, Dept of Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zürich

[Molly Schmitz]

University of Minnesota

Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics
Fall 2025 Seminar Series

Friday, November 7, 2025

209 Akerman Hall

2:30pm-4:30pm

AEM Seminar: 

Variational phase-field modeling of fracture: toward second-generation models

Abstract: 

Variational phase-field modeling of fracture, first introduced in 2000 for brittle fracture of homogeneous and isotropic materials under predominant mode-I loading, has since evolved in multiple directions. Extensions now cover multiaxial stress states, heterogeneous and anisotropic materials, as well as ductile, dynamic, and rate-dependent fracture. The original model was derived from a variational reformulation of Griffith’s fracture criterion through regularization. However, in many subsequent extensions, the inherent rigidity of the variational framework has prompted the development of non-variational models, which trade the theoretical and practical advantages of the variational setting for greater flexibility in reproducing experimental observations.

In this presentation, we explore strategies to enrich variational phase-field models with sufficient flexibility to overcome current limitations, potentially paving the way for a second generation of variational phase-field fracture models. Preliminary results will be shown on fracture under multiaxial stress states, fracture of anisotropic materials, and dynamic fracture.

Bio: 

Laura De Lorenzis received her Engineering degree and her PhD from the University of her hometown Lecce, in southern Italy, where she first stayed as Assistant and later as Associate Professor of Solid and structural mechanics. In 2013 she moved to the TU Braunschweig,
Germany, as Professor and Director of the Institute of Applied Mechanics. There she was founding member and first Chair (2017-2020) of the Center for Mechanics, Uncertainty and Simulation in Engineering. Since 2020 she is Professor of Computational Mechanics at ETH
Zürich, in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering. She was visiting scholar in several renowned institutions, including Chalmers University of Technology, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (as holder of a Fulbright
Fellowship in 2006), the Leibniz University of Hannover (with an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship in 2010-2011), the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Cape Town. She is the recipient of several prizes, including the RILEM L’Hermite Medal 2011, the AIMETA Junior Prize 2011, the IIFC Young Investigator Award 2012, the Euromech Solid Mechanics Fellowship 2022, the IACM Fellowship 2024, two best paper awards and two student teaching prizes. In 2011 she was awarded a European Research Council Starting Researcher Grant. She has delivered over 30 plenary lectures at international conferences and authored or co-authored more than 160 papers on international journals on different topics of computational and applied mechanics. Since 2023 she is Editor of Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering.

** Make sure to stick around after the seminar for the AEM Grad Student Trivia Night! We'll have an ice cream sundae bar and give out prizes to the winning teams. Dust off your quizzing skills!

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Molly Schmitz (She/Her/Hers)

Graduate Program Coordinator & Executive Accounts Specialist

Department of Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities