Special Seminar | Dr. Maxime Vassaux

This seminar will focus on computer simulations of the mechanical behavior of amorphous materials, and more specifically, inorganic glasses and glass-ceramics. I will begin by addressing multi-scale simulation techniques, which bridge the atomic structure of these materials with their macroscopic mechanical properties. To be precise, the molecular dynamics simulation method will be at the heart of these simulations. Next, I will focus on the study of the mechanical properties inorganic glasses and their peculiarities. First, I will present an application of the Capriccio method, which combines molecular dynamics and finite element analysis to predict the fracture properties of silica glass. Then, I will discuss two examples of more complex inorganic glasses: (i) oxynitride glasses, in which some of the oxygen is substituted by nitrogen, resulting in an increased connectivity of the atomic network; and, (ii) glass-ceramics, inorganic glasses containing crystalline inclusions, or in other words, inorganic nanocomposites, with a specific focus on their subcritical fracture.