Related papers: Anomalous snapping behavior in asymmetrically cons…

Elastic instabilities such as buckling and snapping have evolved into a powerful design principle, enabling memory, sequential shape morphing, and computing in metamaterials and devices. Modifying the post-buckling configurations or their…

Spontaneous synchronization has long served as a paradigm for behavioral uniformity that can emerge from interactions in complex systems. When the interacting entities are identical and their coupling patterns are also identical, the…

Parametric instabilities are a known feature of periodically driven dynamic systems; at particular frequencies and amplitudes of the driving modulation, the system's quasi-periodic response undergoes a frequency lock-in, leading to a…

A ubiquitous motif in nature is the self-similar hierarchical buckling of a thin lamina near its margins. This is seen in leaves, flowers, fungi, corals, and marine invertebrates. We investigate this morphology from the perspective of…

Bilayers, soft substrates coated with stiff films, are commonly found in nature with examples including skin tissue, vesicles, and organ membranes. They exhibit different types of instabilities when subjected to compression, depending on…

The ability of biomolecules to exert forces on their surroundings or resist compression from the environment is essential in a variety of biologically relevant contexts. As has been understood for centuries, slender rods can only be…

Buckling and barrelling instabilities in the uniaxial compressions of an elastic rectangle have been studied by many authors under lubricated end conditions. However, in practice it is very difficult to realize such conditions due to…

We study the mechanical buckling of a two dimensional membrane coated with a thin layer of superfluid. It is seen that a singularity (vortex or anti-vortex defect) in the phase of the quantum order parameter, distorts the membrane metric…

We investigate with experiments the twist induced transverse buckling instabilities of an elastic sheet of length $L$, width $W$, and thickness $t$, that is clamped at two opposite ends while held under a tension $T$. Above a critical…

The ability to probe symmetry breaking transitions on their natural time scales is one of the key challenges in nonequilibrium physics. Stripe ordering represents an intriguing type of broken symmetry, where complex interactions result in…

Ever since the discovery of graphene and subsequent explosion of interest in single atom thick materials, studying their mechanical properties has been an active area of research. New length scales often necessitate a rethinking of physical…

We study elastic ribbons subject to large, tensile pre-stress confined to a central region within the cross-section. These ribbons can buckle spontaneously to form helical shapes, featuring regions of alternating chirality (phases) that are…

Induced by proteins within the cell membrane or by differential growth, heating, or swelling, spontaneous curvatures can drastically affect the morphology of thin bodies and induce mechanical instabilities. Yet, the interaction of…

A slender object undergoing an axial compression will buckle to alleviate the stress. Typically the morphology of the deformed object depends on the bending stiffness for solids, or the viscoelastic properties for liquid threads. We study a…

We present the general theory of Ising transitions in isotropic elastic media with vanishing thermal expansion. By constructing a minimal model with appropriate spin-lattice couplings, we show that in two dimensions near a continuous…

In this article we address the problem of Euler's buckling instability in a charged semi-flexible polymer that is under the action of a compressive force. We consider this instability as a phase transition and investigate the role of…

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…

A buckled sheet offers a reservoir of material that can be unfurled at a later time. For sufficiently thin yet stiff materials, this geometric process has a striking mechanical feature: when the slack runs out, the material locks to further…

Mechanical instabilities can be exploited to design innovative structures, able to change their shape in the presence of external stimuli. In this work, we derive a mathematical model of an elastic beam subjected to an axial force and…

We examine the shape change of a thin disk with an inserted wedge of material when it is pushed against a plane, using analytical, numerical and experimental methods. Such sheets occur in packaging, surgery and nanotechnology. We…