Mines Professor Builds Smarter Models to Decode Material Performance Under Extreme Conditions

What happens when cutting-edge materials reach their breaking point?

A new research project at South Dakota Mines is tackling that question head-on—developing smarter computer models to predict how ultra-strong, metal-ceramic composites fail under extreme conditions.

From jet engines to bridges and power plants, these materials are critical to modern infrastructure, but their complex internal structures make failure hard, and costly, to foresee. This project aims to change that by combining high-powered simulations, real-world data, and open-source tools to make engineering safer, faster and more reliable.

“Understanding material failure under extreme conditions is critical to improving the safety and reliability of infrastructure and engineered systems,” said Prashant K. Jha, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Leslie A. Rose Department of Mechanical Engineering. “As these materials play essential roles in transportation, energy and defense sectors, developing robust, efficient methods to simulate damage and fracture is vital.”

Jha has been awarded a $200,000 National Science Foundation Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) grant to establish better computer simulations that can more accurately predict when and how these materials will fail.

“We will develop a mathematical model to look at the attraction between two different phases of materials, how they interact with each other, and when you apply forces, how they deform as a result," Jha said. “At the core of the model is the simulation of deformation and failure and realistic contact between the particles or phases.”

These materials, when viewed at the micrometer scale, reveal highly structured and complex internal features; for example, soft materials embedded with ferromagnetic particles, tiny pieces of material that can be strongly magnetized. When a magnetic field is applied, the particles attempt to move in response to the field, causing the material to deform. However, because the particles are embedded within a surrounding matrix, the movement is constrained, Jha said.

It's this interaction that is fascinating but challenging to predict, and something Jha hopes to develop a deeper understanding about. 

“We are able to do high-fidelity simulation of multiple particles where we can see the deformation and breakage of these individual particles and also the complex interaction with different particles,” he said. “The goal of this project is to seamlessly combine the high-fidelity approach developed earlier and the coarse-grained approach, such as approximating the behavior of large collection of particles using continuum theories, allowing us to simulate the samples with tens to hundreds of thousands of particles. Once we have a predictive model, materials can be better designed for various scenarios.”

The work will be conducted through the Computational Engineering Analysis and Design (CEAD) Lab, which Jha is establishing at Mines. Alison Reeves, a senior mechanical engineering student, is working on the project with Jha, and a doctoral student will be added to their team. Jha’s efforts received an additional boost through a South Dakota Board of Regents (SDBOR) Competitive Research Grant (CRG), which will provide $90,000 in funding over the next 18 months.

Jha’s research will create new open-source tools to help engineers design safer, more resilient materials and structural components across a range of industries. It will also train students and host workshops to foster a diverse, skilled workforce equipped to advance the mechanics of complex materials.

By unlocking a deeper understanding of how advanced materials behave under extreme conditions, Jha’s research has the potential to transform the way engineers design the next generation of safer, smarter and more resilient technologies.