Related papers: Modeling shape selection of buckled dielectric ela…
Rotating the clamped ends of a buckled elastica induces a snap-through instability. Predicting the limit point and determining the equilibria at the start and end of the snap are routine computations in the quasi-static setting. The…
Soft dielectric elastomers that can exhibit extremely large deformations under the action of an electric field enable applications such as soft robotics, biomedical devices, energy harvesting among others. A key impediment in the use of…
Topological defects are crucial to the thermodynamics and structure of condensed matter systems. For instance, when incorporated into crystalline membranes like graphene, disclinations with positive and negative topological charge…
Leaves and flowers frequently have a characteristic rippling pattern at their edges. Recent experiments found similar patterns in torn plastic. These patterns can be reproduced by imposing metrics upon thin sheets. The goal of this paper is…
Pull-in (or electro-mechanical) instability occurs when a drastic decrease in the thickness of a dielectric elastomer results in electrical breakdown, which limits the applications of dielectric devices. Here we derive the criteria for…
Two equal and opposite distributed dead loads are applied orthogonally to the axis of an elastic rod in its rectilinear reference configuration, one at the extrados and the other at the intrados, such that the resultant applied force per…
Spatially confined rigid membranes reorganize their morphology in response to the imposed constraints. A crumpled elastic sheet presents a complex pattern of random folds focusing the deformation energy while compressing a membrane resting…
Non-uniform fields are commonly used to study vesicle dielectrophoresis and can be used to hitherto relatively unexplored areas of vesicle deformation and electroporation. A common but perplexing problem in vesicle dynamics is the cross…
The design of compliant mechanisms is crucial in several technologies and relies on the availability of solutions for nonlinear structural problems. One of these solutions is given and experimentally validated in the present article for a…
The critical buckling characteristics of hydrostatically pressurized complete spherical shells filled with an elastic medium are demonstrated. A model based on small deflection thin shell theory, the equations of which are solved in…
In the field of soft dielectric elastomers, the notion electrostriction indicates the dependency of the permittivity on strain. The present paper is aimed at investigating the effects of electrostriction onto the stability behaviour of…
Disordered biopolymer gels have striking mechanical properties including strong nonlinearities. In the case of athermal gels (such as collagen-I) the nonlinearity has long been associated with a crossover from a bending dominated to a…
We provide a clear energetic insight into the catastrophic nature of the so-called creasing and pull-in instabilities in soft electro-active elastomers. These phenomena are ubiquitous for thin electro-elastic plates and are a major obstacle…
A circular twist disclination is a nontrivial example of a defect in an elastic continuum that causes large deformations. The minimal potential energy and the corresponding displacement field is calculated by solving the…
In layered materials, a common mode of deformation involves buckling of the layers under tensile deformation in the direction perpendicular to the layers. The instability mechanism, which operates in elastic materials from geological to…
Elastic strips provide a canonical system for studying the mechanisms governing elastic shape transitions. Buckling, linear snap-through, and nonlinear snap-through have been observed in boundary-actuated strips and linked to the type of…
Soft actuators allow to transform external stimuli to mechanical deformations. Because of their deformational response to external magnetic fields, magnetic gels and elastomers represent ideal candidates for such tasks. Mostly, linear…
In this paper, we propose a multiphysics finite element method for a nonlinear poroelasticity model. To better describe the processes of deformation and diffusion, we firstly reformulate the nonlinear fluid-solid coupling problem into a…
Ionic electro-active polymer (Nafion for example) can be used as sensor or actuator. To this end, a thin film of the water-saturated material is sandwiched between two electrodes. Water saturation causes a quasi-complete dissociation of the…
The large deflections of cantilevered beams and plates are modeled and discussed. Traditional nonlinear elastic models (e.g., that of von Karman) employ elastic restoring forces based on the effect of stretching on bending, and these are…