Granular materials are ubiquitous in nature but remain rather difficult to model accurately. Existing models only work for a specific (fluid, solid, and gas) state and are scattered in different disciplines, including geotechnics, fluid mechanics, physics, etc. I am interested in the mechanics and multi-scale/physical modeling of granular materials in processes where the interplay between the mechanics and physics at various scales is important. My research focuses on establishing the links between predictive models of granular materials, at different scales, and their observation data, via
- efficient coupling of the numerical tools (e.g., multiscale and thermo/hydro-mechanical)
- and model-model or model-data integration using statistical inference and machine learning tools.