Adaptive Multi-Fidelity Framework for Modeling Heterogeneous Materials Under Extreme Conditions

Adaptive multi-fidelity modeling of heterogeneous and particulate materials under extreme mechanical conditions, building on the PeriDEM framework: where a coarse continuum description suffices, and where particle-resolved fracture and contact must be recovered.

The question is where fidelity has to be spent. A granular assembly under load does not deform uniformly: most of it can be carried by a coarse continuum description, while a small, moving part of it, the contacts that are actually transmitting load and the grains that are actually breaking, cannot. Resolving every particle identically is the safe choice and the expensive one; resolving none of them is cheap and wrong. What this award is building is the criterion that decides, during the simulation, which is which.

It builds on PeriDEM, where a particle is a peridynamic solid rather than a rigid body, so fracture inside a grain and contact between grains are resolved in the same framework.