Dynamic fracture of materials and structures is an important theme in the safety evaluation of structures under extreme loading. It is known that most materials exhibit a dynamic response that is highly dependent on the loading rate. As the loading rate increases, the role of inertia increases at both the macro and micro levels. This affects the stress distribution, the fracture process, and the failure mode. This mini-symposium aims to facilitate fruitful discussions and exchange of ideas and promote innovations from distinct approaches used by researchers in the fields of experiments, theoretical models and simulations. Contributions are welcome to discuss different perspectives on this common problem.

Specifically, the mini-symposium will address a number of pressing topics that are not yet entirely understood, such as: How does strain rate affect material properties, strength, and fracture energy? What is the reason for the phenomena of crack branching and change in failure mode? What is the role of inertia? What is the maximum crack velocity in different materials? What is the role of the rate-dependent constitutive law in the dynamic analysis of the structure? What is the effect of high temperature induced damage on dynamic response?

In addition, experimental data and analysis and numerical formulations are of utmost importance to improve our understanding of various phenomena. For example: What are the most efficient loading systems to measure dynamic crack propagation in experiments? How can we measure a dynamically propagating crack and how can we observe the initiation of a dynamically loaded crack? What are the problems in objective evaluation of experimentally measured data? How can the influence of inertia be separated from other effects in experimental tests? What are reliable numerical models and approaches for simulating materials and structures under dynamic loading: cohesive crack models, Peridynamics, X- FEM, EFG or SPH, finite element deletion, phase field formulation, material sink method? Are multi-scale modeling approaches useful for modeling dynamic crack propagation, e.g., is it possible to predict crack rate sensitivity at the micro-scale of the material? What are the limitations of fragmentation simulations in terms of fragment size and residual velocities?

All contributions from the fields of experimental, numerical and theoretical research are welcome. In addition, presentations on industrial applications from the field are also of great interest and welcome.