ISTerre seminar

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Statistical physics of creep rupture of heterogeneous materials

Thursday 15 October 2026 - 11h00

JUAN CARLOS VERANO ESPITIA  - ISTerre - Aalto University (Finlande)
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In this work, the creep behavior of heterogeneous materials, i.e., those subjected to a constant load, is studied using experimental, theoretical, and numerical approaches. Understanding how materials deform, damage, and approach failure is relevant in fields such as materials science, geophysics, and engineering. Nevertheless, in classical mechanics and engineering literature, the so-called "creep" failure is only described using empirical approaches. Such empirical laws are common to most brittle materials, soft materials, ductile metals, and granular media. Therefore, the universality of this phenomenon across a wide range of materials remains an open question, still lacking a full theoretical understanding. Therefore, this project aims (i) to track the progressive damage during creep of heterogeneous brittle materials, e.g. common office paper, using various monitoring tools such as acoustic emission, and (ii) to introduce statistical physics theory and numerical approaches (fiber bundle models, progressive damage model, kinetic Monte Carlo algorithm) to interpret this damage evolution. The final goal is to predict failure in the early stages of creep experiments, leveraging all acquired knowledge, using a Bayesian inference framework. This research has potential applications in material diagnostics and failure prediction, which are highly relevant to civil engineering and risk analysis, as well as to geophysical phenomena such as landslides and rockfalls.

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Organizing team : Mécanique des failles

Amphithéâtre Killian, Maison des Géosciences, 38400 Saint Martin d'Hères

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