PhD Student, Sanket Vinod Wardhekar, Successfully Defends Doctoral Dissertation on Multiaxial Fracture Behavior of Brittle Polymers
Congratulations to Sanket Vinod Wardhekar, a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stony Brook University, who successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, "Multiaxial Fracture Behavior of Brittle Polymers: Characterization and Microplane Constitutive Modeling."
Wardhekar's research advances the understanding of how brittle polymers fail under complex, real-world loading conditions. These materials exhibit challenging behaviors—including different responses to tension and compression, pressure sensitivity, and size-dependent fracture—that are difficult to predict accurately using existing computational models. Improving these predictions is essential for designing safer and more reliable polymer components used in engineering applications, including polymer-matrix composites.
To address these challenges, Wardhekar developed a new microplane constitutive model that captures the complete fracture process and multiaxial inelastic behavior of brittle polymers within a unified framework. The model introduces new mechanisms specifically designed for high-Poisson-ratio materials, such as polymers, enabling more realistic simulations of damage initiation, crack growth, and final failure. Implemented in the commercial finite element software Abaqus, the model can be calibrated using a limited set of standard material tests while accurately predicting a broad range of mechanical behaviors that were not used during calibration.
In addition to developing the computational model, Wardhekar conducted extensive experimental characterization of brittle epoxy resins to validate its predictive capabilities. His research demonstrated that the model accurately reproduces complex fracture phenomena—including crack growth under multiaxial loading and size effects—that conventional fracture models cannot capture. These advances provide a strong foundation for more reliable simulations of polymer and polymer-composite structures across a wide range of engineering applications.
Reflecting on Wardhekar's accomplishments and impact, his faculty advisor, Professor Kedar Kirane, shared his praise:
"I am incredibly proud of Sanket and it has been a privilege to watch him grow into an outstanding researcher. His research contributions to both the experimental characterization and constitutive modeling of multi-axial failure in polymers have advanced our understanding of material behavior. His work will help enable more reliable predictive simulations for engineering applications."
Wardhekar's successful dissertation defense marks an important milestone in his academic career and highlights his significant contributions to the fields of computational mechanics and polymer materials. Congratulations to Dr. Sanket Vinod Wardhekar on this outstanding achievement.