OPENING NEW HORIZONS IN THE PREDICTION OF HYDROGENEMBRITTLEMENT: MULTI-PHYSICS PHASE FIELD FRACTURE
Emilio Martínez-Pañeda

Lecturer (US Asst. Professor) & 1851 Research Fellow
Imperial College London
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, SW7 2AZ, London, UK
e-mail: e.martinez-paneda@imperial.ac.uk ; webpage: www.empaneda.com
ABSTRACTThe phase field fracture method has quickly gained traction as a powerful numerical tool.
Advanced cracking phenomena, such as crack branching, merging, initiation from arbitrarysites and complex crack trajectories, can be captured without convergence problems and on theoriginal finite element mesh. We extend this success to hydrogen embrittlement. A generalchemo-mechanical framework is presented, suitable for any mechanistic interpretation upon an
appropriate definition of the hydrogen-dependent fracture energy degradation law. The
potential of the proposed phase field modelling framework is demonstrated by means ofrepresentative case studies. First, crack growth resistance curves are computed in a wide varietyof scenarios, showing that the model appropriately captures the sensitivity to material strength,loading rate and hydrogen concentration. Secondly, model predictions are benchmarked
against experiments on Ni-based alloys and ferritic and martensitic steels. Results reveal apromising agreement. Insight is also gained into the suitability of standardised experiments;
slow strain rate testing (SSRT) is revisited, showing that subcritical crack growth compromises
its validity. Finally, the capabilities of the modelling framework in enabling Virtual Testing
are showcased. Large-scale multi-physics predictions are obtained for technologically-relevant
applications. The phase field method easily enables capturing damage evolution from an initial
distribution of defects, as measured from in-line inspection or other non-destructive techniques.
More recent extensions, such as the consideration of multiple traps or the modelling of fatigue
damage will also be discussed. Finally, I will show how the phase field paradigm can also open
new modelling horizons in another scientifically-challenging phenomenon of notable
technological importance: corrosion damage.
SHORT BIO
Emilio Martínez Pañeda is a Lecturer (US Asst. Professor) and 1851 Research Fellow atImperial College London, where he leads the Mechanics of Infrastructure Materials Lab.
Before, he was a Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. During his 7-year academiccareer (PhD Thesis: 2013-2016), Emilio has published 45 scientific papers (h-index: 17),supervised 12 PhD students and attracted and managed over £1M in research funding. Emilio
has been the recipient of a number of competitive fellowships such as the 1851 Research
Fellowships, the Marie Curie Individual Fellowship, the H.C. Ørsted Fellowship or theWolfson College (Cambridge) Junior Research Fellowship. His current research interests lie inthe field of applied mechanics; more specifically fracture mechanics, multi-physics problems,and hydrogen embrittlement. Emilio’s work has been recognized through several awards,
including the Simó Prize, the Acta Student Award, the Springer PhD Thesis Prize, the BrunelAward, the Keith Miller Prize, the Extraordinary Doctoral Prize, and the IMechE PrestigeAward for Risk Reduction in Mechanical Engineering.