Prof. Lallit Anand

Professor Anand's research focuses on the development of a physical understanding and quantitative modeling of inelastic deformation and failure phenomena in engineering materials. He has experimentally studied, and theoretically and computationally modeled the deformation and failure response of a wide variety of materials, with particular emphasis on formulating mathematical theories for large deformations of polycrystalline metals, granular materials, and polymers, as well as studies of shear-band localization phenomena which lead to ductile fracture. His recent research includes developing constitutive theories for plasticity of shape-memory metals, amorphous metallic glasses, and nanocrystalline materials, as well as higher-order strain-gradient theories for metal plasticity.

Anand has made substantial contributions to the development of plasticity theories at large deformations, and to the development of robust numerical methods for the implementation of these theories in finite-element-based computer programs. In particular, the following body of his work is widely-cited:

(*) Large-deformation high-temperature isotropic viscoplasticity, and attendant computational procedures: This work forms the basis of the finite-element implementation of plasticity in various widely-used commercial finite-element codes. This theory is now routinely used in applications ranging from the computational design of three-dimensional deformation processes, to reliability prediction of solder-joints and thermal design of electronic packaging.

(*) Large-deformation crystal plasticity: This work includes a detailed accounting of the underlying inelastic deformation mechanisms of slip, twinning, and phase-transformations, and has been used to develop continuum-level models of the anisotropic response of fcc, bcc, and hcp polycrystalline materials. Robust computational procedures for these complex constitutive equations have been developed, and these procedures have been applied to study crystallographic texture evolution and anisotropy in a wide variety of deformation processing operations.