Defense of Wuyang Zhao’s doctoral thesis

We are delighted to announce that Wuyang Zhao successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Multiscale modeling of the fracture behavior of glassy polymers across the atomistic and continuum scale” on August 29, 2023. In his thesis, he revisits the basics of continuum mechanics, atomistic simulations, and their coupling and thoroughly investigates the material behaviour of amorphous polymers at large strains based on molecular dynamics simulations with particular focus on the numerical sample preparation and the effect of simulation parameters as well as physical phenomena like degree of polymerisation, cooling rate, and aging time. Based on this, he demonstrates the capability of the molecular model to render plausible time-temperature superposition at small and large strains. After this, he discusses constitutive modelling approaches and introduces his novel viscoelastic-viscoplastic model to capture the material behaviour based on molecular dynamics simulations. The last section concentrates on Wuyang’s extension of the Capriccio method to inelastic material behaviour and large strains and gives an outlook to coupled fracture simulations with the vicinity of the crack tip resolved at the molecular level. We wish Wuyang a successful continuation of his research activities and all the best for his future!

His thesis is openly available via https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-fau/frontdoor/index/index/docId/23843