PHYSICAL MATHEMATICS SEMINAR


TOPIC:		VISCOELASTIC LATTICE MODELS OF 
		BRITTLE FRACTURE

SPEAKER:	HERBERT LEVINE
		Department of Physics
		University of California, San Diego


ABSTRACT:

Following the pioneering efforts of Slepyan and later, Marder and Gross,
we study brittle fracture in an idealized lattice model of nonlinear
springs.  For a discontinuous force law, steady-state cracks can be
studied analytically via the Wiener-Hopf technique; for more general laws,
these cracks and their stability can be studied numerically via iterative
algorithms.  Results to date include data on the effects of (microscopic)
dissipation on crack dynamics, findings on how the range of arrested crack
solutions depends on the force law assumptions, and a new stability
analysis which shed light on the transition to more complex crack tip
dynamics.

DATE:		TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2000

TIME:		2:30 PM

LOCATION:	Building 2, Room 338


Refreshments will be served at 3:30 PM in Building 2, Room 349


					Massachusetts Institute of Technology
					Department of Mathematics
					Cambridge, MA  02139