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Electrostatic theory preserves charges, but allows dipolar excitations. Elasticity theory preserves dipoles, but allows quadrupolar (Eshelby like) plastic events. Charged amorphous granular systems are interesting in their own right; here…

A significant range of geometric structures whose rigidity is explored for both practical and theoretical purposes are formed by modifying generically isostatic triangulated spheres. In the block and hole structures (P, p), some edges are…

A rectangular thin elastic sheet is deformed by forcing a contact between two points at the middle of its length. A transition to buckling with stress focusing is reported for the sheets sufficiently narrow with a critical width…

The buckling behavior of cylindrical shells has gained significant interest over the past century due to its rich nonlinear behavior and broad engineering applications. While the buckling of cylindrical shells under a single load (e.g.,…

Non-Euclidean plates are thin elastic bodies having no stress-free configuration, hence exhibiting residual stresses in the absence of external constraints. These bodies are endowed with a three-dimensional reference metric, which may not…

The buckling of thin elastic sheets is a classic mechanical instability that occurs over a wide range of scales. In the extreme limit of atomically thin membranes like graphene, thermal fluctuations can dramatically modify such mechanical…

How much energy does it take to stamp a thin elastic shell flat? Motivated by recent experiments on the wrinkling patterns of floating shells, we develop a rigorous method via $\Gamma$-convergence for answering this question to leading…

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…

The existence of a crumpled phase for self-avoiding elastic surfaces was postulated more than three decades ago using simple Flory-like scaling arguments. Despite much effort, its stability in a microscopic environment has been the subject…

A variational model is used to study the stability of a soap film spanning a flexible loop. The film is modeled as a fluid surface endowed with constant tension and the loop is modeled as an elastic rod resistant to both bending and twist.…

Designing materials that can effectively and repeatedly absorb energy from unpredictable directions represents a grand challenge in modern engineering, crucial for applications from vehicle crashworthiness systems to personal protective…

We document a sequence of bifurcations and elastic patterns in sheared bent sheets of intermediate aspect ratio. The sheets undergo inversion of curvature through the passage of localized features, often in S-shaped pairs. Nested…

Cell crawling requires the generation of intracellular forces by the cytoskeleton and their transmission to an extracellular substrate through specific adhesion molecules. Crawling cells show many features of excitable systems, such as…

We consider the point-indentation of a pressurized elastic shell. It has previously been shown that such a shell is subject to a wrinkling instability as the indentation depth is quasi-statically increased. Here we present detailed analysis…

When a thin elastic sheet crumples, the elastic energy condenses into a network of folding lines and point vertices. These folds and vertices have elastic energy densities much greater than the surrounding areas, and most of the work…

Extreme deformation can drastically morph a structure from one structural form into another. Programming such deformation properties into the structure is often challenging and in many cases an impossible task. The morphed forms do not hold…

Thin elastic sheets bend easily, leading to mechanical instabilities such as wrinkling. Here, we investigate wrinkles at edges of bi-strips, which consist of two thin sheets, one that swells and one that does not, joined side-by-side. It is…

We study the dynamics of sail membranes during a tacking maneuver, when the sail angle of attack is reversed in order to sail upwind. In successful tacking the sail flips to the mirror-image shape, while in unsuccessful tacking the sail…

We consider a system of granular particles, modeled by two dimensional frictional elastic disks, that is exposed to externally applied time-dependent shear stress in a planar Couette geometry. We concentrate on the external forcing that…

We examine the stability of a soft dielectric plate deformed by the coupled effects of a mechanical pre-stress applied on its lateral faces and an electric field applied through its thickness under charge control. The electric field is…