The mechanical response of snow to mixed‐mode shear and normal loading is the key ingredient for snow avalanche modeling and strongly depends on microstructural characteristics. A discrete element numerical model was developed, which enables the simulation of large‐strain response of snow samples directly described by their full microstructure obtained through X‐ray microtomography. The model offers new insights into the failure mechanism as well as postfailure response of snow in mixed‐mode loading. Three distinct failure modes are identified, depending on the value of applied normal stress. Above a certain threshold normal stress, the failure is characterized by a structural collapse that decomposes the snow sample into a set of cohesionless grains. It is shown that the collapse is a dynamic process, which, once initiated, develops independently of shearing. This behavior was consistently observed for different snow types, including faceted crystals typically composing weak layers.

Selective laser melting (SLM) is one of the most popular additive-manufacturing techniques that are revolutionising the production process by opening up new possibilities for unique product-shape fabrication, generating objects of complex geometry and reducing energy consumption as well as waste. However, the more widespread use of this technology is hindered by a major drawback—the thermal-history-dependent microstructure that is typical of SLM-fabricated objects is linked to uncertainties regarding the crucial material properties. While trial-and-error approaches are often employed to limit these risks, the rapidly developing field of numerical modelling represents a cheap and reliable methodology for predicting the microstructure—and by extension, the mechanical properties—of SLM-fabricated objects. Numerical approaches hitherto applied to predicting the evolution of the microstructure in SLM processes and similar boundary-value problems are reviewed and analysed in this article. The conducted analysis focused on mesoscopic scale models, which currently offer sufficient resolution to recover the key microstructural properties at a computational cost that is low enough for the methodology to be applied to industrial problems.