A fast design-virtual testing and manufacturing cycle, automation, and data exchange in manufacturing technology requires highly efficient and reliable failure-predictive computational tools for an accurate prediction of fracture and damage phenomena associated with the initiation and propagation of cracks interacting with interfaces. These are critical for the structural integrity, reliability, and efficiency of different highly technological systems and components that are produced and used in a wide range of sectors, e.g. those related to the NEWFRAC project: i) Structural ceramics, and fiber-reinforced composites in the aeronautical, space and automotive industries; ii) Systems for renewable energy production such as photovoltaic modules, iii) Biomechanical systems for surgery.
The optimal exploitation of the capacities of such systems requires a deep knowledge of different fracture mechanisms affecting their integrity. The total losses due to fracture in the modern society can achieve a few percent of the gross economic product. These losses are at least partially evitable by a proper investment in research and application of new computational strategies for fracture prediction. However, the current modeling tools are insufficient for failure prediction in heterogeneous systems with high level of complexity, where cracks are interacting with bimaterial interfaces (initiating at/approaching/crossing/deflecting at/propagating along interfaces and kinking towards adjacent bulk) and in which multiple physical phenomena are coupled and occur at different length scales simultaneously.
NEWFRAC is the first coordinated initiative in the EU to systematically advance failure prediction in heterogeneous systems through a novel computational framework by integrating two modern modeling strategies: the Coupled Criterion of Finite Fracture Mechanics and the Phase Field Models of Fracture, which have undergone great development in the last two decades.
The overarching objective of the NEWFRAC network is a high-level training of a new generation of creative, entrepreneurial, and innovative early-stage researchers (ESRs) through the development and engineering applications of these modelling strategies focusing on the prediction and analysis of multi-field fracture phenomena in specific heterogeneous engineering systems at different scales.
The main research objective of the NEWFRAC network is the development of a new modeling and simulation framework for the fracture mechanics optimization of high-level technological products involving heterogeneous systems (materials and structures), employed in engineering fields of strategic societal and scientific impact, ranging from renewable energy production systems to biological hard tissues.
