Constitutively Informed Particle Dynamics:

A Novel Discrete Particle Modelling Approach

F​ree Webinar

Tuesday, 17 February 2026 | Online

14:00 (Bengaluru)
09:30 (Berlin) | 08:30 (London)

P​art of the प्रवाह -Pravaha - NAFEMS India Webinar Series
E​xploring Frontiers in Engineering Modelling & Simulation

We present a new computational paradigm for describing the mechanical behaviour of materials, particularly those with evolving microstructure such as cracks, damage and phase changes. Our approach is based on a discrete particle paradigm which has been developed as an alternative to classical continuum mechanics to describe the mechanical behaviour of solids.​ Heretofore, discrete particle models have been very limited -- consisting mainly of linear pairwise interactions. Thus these models have been able to describe a very limited range of macroscopic constitutive behaviour and have also generally been strongly dependent on the nature of discretization.​ Our alternative approach allows us to model very complex material behaviour including evolving cracks and phase changes. We show the efficacy of this approach in describing several interesting problems ranging from brittle crack growth, fluid-structure interactions and phase transformations.

Agenda

• W​elcome & Introductions
  J​o Potts, NAFEMS
• U​pdate on NAFEMS India
  NAFEMS India Chair - Uma Maheshwar | BEC - GE Aerospace
  NAFEMS India Chair Elect - Jaya Raju Namala | Airbus Group India Private Ltd. 
• Constitutively Informed Particle Dynamics: A Novel Discrete Particle Modelling Approach
  Dr. Srikanth Vedantam, IIT Madras

• Q​&A

O​ur Speaker ...

Dr. Srikanth Vedantam is currently a professor in the Department of Engineering Design with a joint appointment in the Department of Medical Sciences and Technology at IIT Madras. Before moving to IIT Madras he was a faculty member at the National University of Singapore. He had worked as a Researcher in the General Electric Global Research Centre NY USA before moving to NUS. Dr. Srikanth obtained his ScD from MIT and MS from the Penn State University. His BTech is from IIT Madras in Mechanical Engineering.

Dr. Srikanth has published more than 75 journal papers and has been awarded 11 US and 3 Indian patents. His interests are in the areas of computational solid and fluid mechanics and computational materials science, particularly on the role of evolving microstructure on the mechanical behaviour of materials.