Projects and key publications

  • A unified theory for fracture

The project started with a goal to develop a unified theory of nucleation and propagation of fracture in elastomers that can describe and predict some famed, but heretofore unexplained, experiments in natural and silicone rubber (related to a phenomenon called cavitation).

This work provided unexpected motivation to revisit the nucleation of fracture in brittle materials at large, not just elastomers, and led to a general model for nucleation and propagation of fracture.


Key publications:

  1. Fracture and healing of elastomers: A phase-transition theory and numerical implementation

  • Aditya Kumar, Gilles A Francfort, Oscar Lopez-Pamies

  • Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 2018 (pdf)

  1. Revisiting nucleation in the phase-field approach to brittle fracture

  • Aditya Kumar, Blaise Bourdin, Gilles A Francfort, Oscar Lopez-Pamies

  • Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 2020 (pdf)

  1. The poker-chip experiments of Gent and Lindley (1959) explained

  • Aditya Kumar, Oscar Lopez-Pamies

  • Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 2021 (pdf)

  • Viscoelastic behavior of elastomeric composites

The goal is to describe the macroscopic viscoelastic behavior of polymeric composites directly in terms of the behavior of its microscopic constituents. As a first step, we developed a two-potential framework for nonlinear viscoelasticity to unify various constitutive models in the literature. A model coming out of this framework is now widely used.


Key publications:

  1. On the two-potential constitutive modelling of rubber viscoelastic materials

  • Aditya Kumar, Oscar Lopez-Pamies

  • Comptes Rendus Mecanique, 2016 (pdf)

  1. The nonlinear viscoelastic response of suspensions of rigid inclusions in rubber: I — Gaussian rubber with constant viscosity

  • Kamalendu Ghosh, Bhavesh Shrimali, Aditya Kumar, Oscar Lopez-Pamies

  • Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 2021 (pdf)

  • Frontal polymerization and applications to 3D printing and patterning

Front polymerization is an energy- and time-efficient way of curing polymers and polymeric composites that has opened up new avenues into advanced manufacturing. The goal of this project is to develop rigorous non-linear multi-physics models and supporting theory that can aid the manufacturing process.


Key publications:

  1. Surface pattern formation induced by oscillatory loading of frontally polymerized gels

  • Aditya Kumar, Leon M Dean, Mostafa Yourdkhani, Allen Guo, Cole BenVau, Nancy R Sottos, Philippe H Geubelle

  • Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 2022 (pdf)

  1. Thermo-chemo-mechanical modeling of a rapidly-curing additive manufacturing technique

  • Aditya Kumar, Michael J Zakoworotny, Jia En Aw, Javier Balta, Sameh H Tawfick Nancy R Sottos, Philippe H Geubelle

  • In Preparation