Solidification and mechanical coupling in microfracture propagation

Academic Coordinator | Marco Fontenlos. Associate professor at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and researcher at CSIC.

Business Coordinator | Ángel Rivero Jimenez, Senior scientist at Repsol Technology Center.

Specialist | Gerardo Enrique Oleaga Apadula, Associate Professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Description | Consider an interface between two crystalline solids A and B. Phase A allows electrodisolution and electrodeposition and B allows diffusion of the A-dissolved species inside. In this transport process from A to B and its interaction with the free surface A / B, two possible phenomena appear, both of interest;

– Growth of A and fracture of B. The molecular species A-dissolved is deposited by electrochemical reaction in A (in the interface A / B) in such a way that the deposition front of A is not uniform and a phenomenon of fingering of A happens. This occurs by pressing and compressing B to the point of fracturing and penetrating into B;

– Dissolution of A. Under other operating conditions A may dissolve (opposite effect to the previous one) and may cause loss of local contact between both phases A and B, reducing the interface area between A / B and therefore the effective area for the electrochemical reaction;

Scope | The aim is to find a model that reproduces the coupled physics between electrochemical reaction, growth (solidification) / decrease (melting) in A and fracture in B.

Presentation

Conclussions