Department of Mechanics of Advanced Materials – 13252

List of persons

  • prof. RNDr. Michal Kotoul, DrSc. –  head of department
  • doc. Ing. Jana Horníková, Ph.D.               
  • doc. Ing. Luboš Náhlík, Ph.D.
  • doc. Ing. Tomáš Profant, Ph.D.
  • Ing. Zdeněk Majer, Ph.D.
  • Ing. Petr Skalka, Ph.D.
  • Ing. Oldřich Ševeček, Ph.D. 

The Fracture mechanics and micromechanics of composite materials group focuses on theoretical/computational aspects of fracture mechanics of heterogeneous materials and composites. Thanks to tight cooperation with the fracture group of the Institute of Physics of Materials CAS, which primarily focuses on experimental research, the group has highly flexible access to all necessary experimental data.

Main activities of the group:

  • analytical/numerical simulations of the material failure,
  • fracture mechanics of general stress concentrators,
  • prediction of crack propagation in vicinity of material interfaces,
  • fracture mechanics of anisotropic and nonhomogeneous materials,
  • modelling of multilayer structures and their response un-der various operational conditions,
  • modelling of the ceramic foam response to mechanical loading,
  • optimization of structure and material design to enhance their fracture resistance,
  • computational support for crack free material processing,
  • application of higher order continua.

Material models:

  • linear/nonlinear models,
  • isotropic/orthotropic/anisotropic material models,
  • homogeneous and nonhomogeneous materials,
  • creep and piezoelectric material models,
  • gradient elasticity models.

Mathematical background of the material modelling:

  • FEM, integral equations and complex potentials techniques,
  • combined FEM/analytical treatment of general stress concentrators,
  • continuously distributed dislocation technique,
  • matched asymptotic expansion technique.

Fracture mechanics of thermal barrier coatings:

  • numerical analysis of the residual stress distribution,
  • fracture-mechanics assessment of the coatings,
  • optimization of the thermal barrier coatings composition.

Simulations of composite materials:

  • fracture mechanics of isotropic/anisotropic composite materials,
  • fracture mechanics of ceramic based multilayer structures containing high residual stresses and optimization of their resistance to failure,
  • modelling of ceramic-metal based electronic components and assessment of their fracture-mechanics response under various operational conditions,
  • modelling of fracture in long fibre composites.

Modelling of foam materials:

  • creation of complex 3D FE models (based on mCT),
  • analysis of the foam geometrical characteristics,
  • FE based multiscale modelling of the foam structure (realistic, simplified, continuum models),
  • FE analyses of the foam structure response to various loading.