Modeling of Fracture in Sand Material
CME Department Seminar
November 21, 2025
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM America/Chicago
Presenter: Shank S. Kulkarni, PhD, University of Illinois Chicago
Location: ERF Room 1047
Abstract: Understanding and accurately modeling fracture in granular materials like sand is critical for advancing both fundamental science and engineering applications. This seminar presents a comprehensive framework for simulating fracture in sand, with a focus on both classical and modern computational approaches.
The core of the presentation details the use of advanced finite element methods (FEM), specifically leveraging Marc/Mentat software, to model crack initiation and propagation in brittle materials. Recognizing the limitations of traditional FEM in handling complex crack paths and mesh dependencies, then the seminar introduces the phase field method as a powerful alternative. This method enables the modeling of crack initiation, propagation, and branching without the need for ad hoc criteria, and is particularly well-suited for brittle, anisotropic materials like sand. Results from numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework in capturing the influence of material orientation on crack paths and validating the model against analytical and literature benchmarks.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Shank S. Kulkarni provides the highest-tier support on a robust nonlinear finite element solver Marc, Dytran, and Nastran SOL 400. He worked as a computational scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at Richland before joining Hexagon. He received a Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in the field of computational solid mechanics. His research is mainly focused on finite element analysis, peridynamics, phase field method, crystal plasticity, and fracture mechanics. He has experience of more than 11+ years in the field of finite element analysis and worked with multiple commercial as well as open-source FEA software such as ANSYS, ABAQUS, WARP3D, MOOSE, ESI PAM-COMPOSITES, etc. His hobbies include travel, bird photography, and cinematography. He has been creating a wide variety of videos for the last five years for different platforms.
Date posted
Nov 17, 2025
Date updated
Nov 17, 2025