Plenary Lecture

Plenary 1

Bob Svendsen (TU Dortmund): Thermodynamic formulation of models for microstructural evolution and their application to the simulation of technological systems

Monday, April 18, 2011, 11:15 – 12:00

The modeling and simulation of microstructural evolution and material behavior in technological systems has been and continues to be a major challenge for material science, mechanics, mathematics and engineering. In the current presentation, some recent work on the modeling and simulation of such systems will be reported on.

To begin, two approaches to the formulation of continuum field / material models for such systems will be discussed in the context of continuum thermodynamics and material theory. The first is direct in nature, being based for example on the balance relations, symmetry and invariance arguments, as well as the dissipation principle. The second approach is variational in nature. It is based on a rate functional reflecting the history-dependent nature of the microstructural evolution and material behavior.

In both approaches, the forms of model relations for particular systems are determined with the help of considerations from material science and experiment. These include the form of free energy for energetic processes, that of the dissipation potential for kinetic processes, and those of the evolution relations for history-dependent quantities.

A number of examples and applications will be given.