Jędrzej Dobrzański (DSc., Eng.) from the Department of Mechanics of Materials at IPPT PAN has won the national stage of the prestigious ECCOMAS PhD Awards 2024, organized by the European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences (ECCOMAS). This award is given for outstanding doctoral dissertations in the field of computational methods in applied sciences and engineering.
ECCOMAS is a European scientific organization comprising 23 associations focused on the advancement of computational methods in applied sciences and engineering. Each year, it presents two awards for the best doctoral theses defended across member countries.
Dr Dobrzański, the winner of the national stage organized by the Polish Association for Computational Mechanics (PTMKM), will represent Poland in the European final, competing with top dissertations from across Europe. He will receive his national award diploma during the CMM 2025 conference in Łódź (July 8–11). The final results will be announced on May 12, and the award ceremony will take place during the YIC 2025 in Pescara (September 17–19). The main prize includes €2000 and the full coverage of travel and participation expense.
Dr. Jędrzej Dobrzański graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology. He completed his bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and his master’s degree in Structural Mechanics with distinction, receiving awards for being the best graduate of his faculty.
In 2018, he began his doctoral studies at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology under the supervision of Prof. Dariusz Łydżba. Less than a year later, having won a competitive selection for a doctoral scholarship within a research project funded by the National Science Centre of Poland, he joined the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IPPT PAN) in Warsaw. There, under the guidance of Prof. Stanisław Stupkiewicz, he continued his research on novel computational approaches for modeling sharp and diffuse interfaces, which became the foundation of his doctoral dissertation. He defended the thesis with honors in December 2024.
Title of the award-winning dissertation: Finite-element modelling of moving weak discontinuities using laminated microstructures, supervisor: Prof. Stanisław Stupkiewicz (DSc, Eng).
In his dissertation, a novel computational method based on the finite element method is proposed for modeling material and moving weak discontinuities, also referred to as interfaces. The approach employs a non-conforming mesh, meaning that the spatial discretization of the computational domain is not aligned with the internal geometry of the modeled body. That is, finite element nodes do not have to lie on the discontinuity surfaces.
To correctly represent the physical behavior of regions intersected by an interface—typically involving two distinct material phases—the method introduces the so-called laminated elements. These are finite elements that incorporate layered microstructures, where both the volume fraction of each phase and the lamination orientation are determined by the position of the interface within the element. This enables accurate modeling of discontinuities without the need to refine the mesh along the interface.
The performance of the new method is demonstrated through problems typical for micromechanics of heterogeneous materials. The results presented in the dissertation have been published in prestigious scientific journals and can be found:
- Dobrzański J., Stupkiewicz S., Towards a sharper phase-field method: A hybrid diffuse–semisharp approach for microstructure evolution problems. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg., 423:116841, 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.cma.2024.116841
- Dobrzański J., Wojtacki K., Stupkiewicz S., Lamination-based efficient treatment of weak discontinuities for non-conforming finite element meshes. Computers & Structures, 291:107209, 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.compstruc.2023.107209
Since October 2022, Dr. Jędrzej Dobrzański has been employed at IPPT PAN in the Materials Modeling Group within the Department of Mechanics of Materials. His scientific interests include solid mechanics and computational methods in mechanics, with a particular focus on the finite element method. He is currently a researcher in a project led by Prof. Stanisław Stupkiewicz, investigating the effect of diffusion on the formation of the omega phase in metastable beta-titanium alloys, using micromechanical modeling based on the phase-field method.
The success of our laureate is a distinction in itself and underscores the high standard of scientific research conducted at IPPT PAN in the field of computational methods. We eagerly await the results of the international stage of the competition and extend our best wishes to this talented young researcher the very best of luck in the final of the ECCOMAS PhD Awards 2024!
