The Materials Engineering Group is responsible for research in the area of numerical crack growth studies using finite element analysis. To do this, a specialized finite element code, Warp3D is being utilized. Warp3D is a research code being developed by the Computational Fracture Mechanics Research Group under the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . Current work in this area focuses on the prediction of cracks in strength overmatched defect bearing butt welds.
Some preliminary results are also available.