Lunchtime Seminar - Keeping our infrastructure safe: cracks, hydrogen embrittlement and other material degradation challenges

Catastrophic failures of engineering structures and components are becoming increasingly frequent in our complex technological society. Phenomena such as metal fatigue, corrosion and hydrogen-assisted cracking compromise the integrity of our infrastructure, as in the recent collapse of bridge Morandi in Genoa. I will show how our scientific understanding of material behaviour enables predicting and preventing failures using computer models.