We analyse the $\Gamma$-convergence of general non-local convolution type functionals with varying densities depending on the space variable and on the symmetrized gradient. The limit is a local free-discontinuity functional, where the bulk term can be completely characterized in terms of an asymptotic cell formula. From that, we can deduce an homogenisation result in the stochastic setting.

In this work we derive by $\Gamma$-convergence techniques a model for brittle fracture linearly elastic plates. Precisely, we start from a brittle linearly elastic thin film with positive thickness $\rho$ and study the limit as $\rho$ tends to $0$. The analysis is performed with no a priori restrictions on the admissible displacements and on the geometry of the fracture set. The limit model is characterized by a Kirchhoff-Love type of structure.

A new approach to irreversible quasistatic fracture growth is given, by means of Young measures.The study concerns a cohesive zone model with prescribed crack path, when the material gives different responses to loading and unloading phases.In the particular situation of constant unloading response,the result contained in [G. Dal Maso and C. Zanini,Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh Sect. A137 (2007) 253–279] is recovered.In this case, the convergence of the discrete time approximationsis improved.


We consider, in an open subset Ω of ${\mathbb R}^N$ , energies depending on the perimeter of a subset $E\subset\Omega$ (or some equivalent surface integral) and on a function u which isdefined only on $\Omega\setminus E$ . We compute the lower semicontinuous envelopeof such energies. This relaxation has to take intoaccount the fact that in the limit, the “holes” E maycollapse into a discontinuity of u, whose surface will be countedtwice in the relaxed energy. We discuss some situations where suchenergies appear, and give, as an application, a new proofof convergence for an extensionof Ambrosio-Tortorelli's approximation to the Mumford-Shah functional.


The Mumford-Shah functional, introduced to study image segmentation problems, is approximated in the sense of vergence by a sequence ofintegral functionals defined on piecewise affine functions.

About two years ago, Gobbino [21]gave a proof of a De Giorgi's conjectureon the approximation of the Mumford-Shah energy by means offinite-differences based non-local functionals.In this work, we introduce a discretized version of De Giorgi'sapproximation, that may be seen as a generalization ofBlake and Zisserman's “weak membrane” energy(first introduced in the image segmentation framework).A simple adaptation of Gobbino's results allows us tocompute the Γ-limit of this discrete functional asthe discretization step goes to zero; this generalizes a previouswork by the author on the “weak membrane” model [10].We deduce how to design in a systematic way discreteimage segmentation functionals with “less anisotropy” thanBlake and Zisserman's original energy, and we show insome numerical experiments how it improves the method.