Speaker: 

Kaushik Bhattacharya

Institution: 

Caltech

Time: 

Thursday, April 19, 2012 - 4:00pm

Location: 

RH 306

 
This talk will discuss the problem of finding effective laws that the govern the overall evolution of free boundaries propagating in a heterogeneous media.  This is motivated by a number of phenomena in mechanics and materials physics including phase boundaries, peeling of adhesive tape, dislocations, fracture and wetting fronts.   While there is a rigorous mathematical theory of homogenization in the context of properties that are characterized by a variational principle, much remains unknown about equations that describe evolutionary processes.   The talk will discuss the mathematical issues, difficulties and results, and illustrate the implication on materials through selected examples.  The talk will conclude with current work on free discontinuity problems.