ERC Advanced Grant
Award year: 2022
Category: Scholarship / Grant
Type: ERC Advanced Grant
Awarding organization: Europäischer Forschungsrat (ERC)
Which combinations of materials are compatible? How secure are joins? When do components fracture or tear? Paul Steinmann has been investigating topics such as these for over 20 years. Steinmann intends to use the ERC grant to perform more detailed research into the fracture mechanics of soft materials such as rubber and tissue. Whereas hard materials can be analyzed using conventional fracture mechanics, the mechanics of soft materials is harder to predict, which makes it difficult to calculate the fracture initiation and the spread of cracks. In his research project, Steinmann intends to test new modeling approaches and algorithms that allow the spread of cracks in soft materials to be tracked numerically.