The main research area of the laboratory is simulation of mechanical and physical processes in media with microstructure at different time and spatial scales, including but not limited o the following topics:

• thermomechanical properties of ultrapure crystalline materials in a wide range of mechanical and thermal loads;
• deformation and fracture of materials with microstructure;
• discrete and continuum models of physical and mechanical processes in condensed matter at different length scales;
• brittle fracture under shock loading;
• formation, deformation and fracture of nanostructures.

In the field of simulation of technological processes related to the production of oil, gas and other minerals, the laboratory is working in the follow directions:

• development of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) simulator modules;
• prediction of rock properties;
• recovery of well-performance parameters using machine-learning methods;
• development of numerical filtration modeling methods.

Anton Krivtsov, head of the Laboratory "Discrete Models of Mechanics," is the laureate of the P.L. Chebyshev Honorary Prize for Achievements in Mathematics and Mechanics.

The Award is named in honor of Paphnutii L. Chebyshev, one of the greatest Russian mathematicians and mechanics of the 19th century, the founder of the St. Petersburg school of mathematics, an academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and 24 other academies of the world.

The prize was awarded to Anton Krivtsov for the development of unified analytical and computational approaches for modeling processes in condensed matter with a discrete structure. These approaches made it possible to describe from unified positions the mechanical processes in condensed matter at different scales, from nanosystems to astrophysical systems.