Department of Fracture Mechanics of Materials

History

The Department of Fracture Mechanics of Materials was established in 1963 under the name Department of Plasticity of Materials. In 1968, it was renamed the Department of Plasticity and Fracture of Materials, and since 1976 it has had its current name — the Department of Fracture Mechanics of Materials.

Main research areas

• Theory of long-term fracture of isotropic and anisotropic viscoelastic bodies with cracks under constant and time-dependent loading.
• Theory and methods for studying slow subcritical crack growth in polymers and polymer-based composites.
• Methods for solving static problems of the linear theory of viscoelasticity for anisotropic bodies, including approaches based on continued fractions.
• Investigation of stress-state evolution in viscoelastic anisotropic bodies and composites with stress concentrators.
• Two-parameter fracture criteria for elastic-plastic bodies with cracks, invariant with respect to the type of stress state at the crack front.
• Structural-mechanical models of strain hardening and fracture of isotropic and plastically anisotropic structural metals.
• Methods for determining crack-resistance parameters and the structure of the plastic zone near the crack tip.

Staff profile

The department includes specialists in fracture mechanics, viscoelasticity, crack growth, contact problems, cohesive-zone modelling and numerical methods for analysing the durability and crack resistance of structural elements.

The department currently includes three Doctors of Sciences and five Candidates of Sciences in physics and mathematics.