Related papers: Geometrically controlled snapping transitions in s…
We investigate discrete spin transformations, a geometric framework to manipulate surface meshes by controlling mean curvature. Applications include surface fairing -- flowing a mesh onto say, a reference sphere -- and mesh extrusion --…
Granular packings display a wealth of mechanical features which are of widespread significance. One of these features is creep: the slow deformation under applied stress. Creep is common for many other amorphous materials such as many…
In this paper, we investigate rigid-ruling folding motions of crease-rule patterns, that is, conjugacy-preserving isometries of developable semi-discrete conjugate nets. We derive two conditions for the rigid-ruling foldability of pairs of…
Creases are purposely introduced to thin structures for designing deployable origami, artistic geometries, and functional structures with tunable nonlinear mechanics. Modeling the mechanics of creased structures is challenging because…
A plethora of two-dimensional (2D) materials entered the physics and engineering scene in the last two decades. Their robust, membrane-like sheet permit -- mostly require -- deposition, giving rise to solid-solid dry interfaces whose bodily…
Obstructions influence the growth and expansion of bodies in a wide range of settings -- but isolating and understanding their impact can be difficult in complex environments. Here, we study obstructed growth/expansion in a model system…
Growth-elasticity is a powerful model framework for understanding complex shape development in soft biological tissues. At each instant, by mapping how continuum building blocks have grown geometrically and how they respond elastically to…
Snapping of a slender structure is utilized in a wide range of natural and man-made systems, mostly to achieve rapid movement without relying on muscle-like elements. Although several mechanisms for elastic energy storage and rapid release…
Making use of a simplified model for protein folding, it can be shown that conformations which are particularly stable when their energy is minimized with respect to amino acid sequence (in the sense that they display a large energy gap to…
Surface roughness emerges naturally during mechanical removal of material, fracture, chemical deposition, plastic deformation, indentation, and other processes. Here, we use continuum simulations to show how roughness which is neither…
Soft and biological matter come in a variety of shapes and geometries. When soft surfaces that do not fit into each other due to a mismatch in Gaussian curvatures form an interface, beautiful geometry-induced patterns emerge. In this paper,…
We study the periodic buckling patterns that emerge when elastic shells are subjected to geometric confinement. Residual swelling provides access to range of shapes (saddles, rolled sheets, cylinders, and spherical sections) which vary in…
Thin elastic films can spontaneously attach to liquid interfaces, offering a platform for tailoring their physical, chemical, and optical properties. Current understanding of the elastocapillarity of thin films is based primarily on studies…
Complex textured surfaces occur in nature and industry, from fingerprints to lithography-based micropatterns. Wrinkling by confinement to an incompatible substrate is an attractive way of generating reconfigurable patterned topographies,…
The compression of soft elastic matter and biological tissue can lead to creasing, an instability where a surface folds sharply into periodic self-contacts. Intriguingly, the unfolding of the surface upon releasing the strain is usually not…
Soft slender structures are ubiquitous in natural and artificial systems and can be observed at scales that range from the nanometric to the kilometric, from polymers to space tethers. We present a practical numerical approach to simulate…
From hydrogels and plastics to liquid crystals, soft solids cover a wide array of synthetic and biological materials that play key enabling roles in advanced technologies such as 3D printing, soft robotics, wearable electronics,…
As 2D materials such as graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides, and 2D polymers become more prevalent, solution processing and colloidal-state properties are being exploited to create advanced and functional materials. However, our…
Many compliant shell mechanisms are periodically corrugated or creased. Being thin, their preferred deformation modes are inextensional, i.e., isometric. Here, we report on a recent characterization of the isometric deformations of periodic…
We examine the focusing of kinetic energy and the amplification of various quantities during the snapping motion of the free end of a flexible structure. This brief but violent event appears to be a regularized finite-time singularity, with…