Related papers: Twist-induced snapping in a bent elastic ribbon

Many elastic structures exhibit rapid shape transitions between two possible equilibrium states: umbrellas become inverted in strong wind and hopper popper toys jump when turned inside-out. This snap-through is a general motif for the…

A growing or compressed thin elastic sheet adhered to a rigid substrate can exhibit a buckling instability, forming an inward hump. Our study shows that the strip morphology depends on the delicate balance between the compression energy and…

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…

Bistability and snap-through instabilities are central to various mechanisms in nature and engineering, enabling rapid movement and large shape changes with minimal energy input. These phenomena are easily demonstrated by bending a piece of…

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…

When a flat elastic strip is compressed along its axis, it is bent in one of two possible directions via spontaneous symmetry breaking and forms a cylindrical arc, a phenomenon well known as Euler buckling. When this cylindrical section is…

Snap-buckling is a rapid shape transition in slender structures, appearing as a fundamental switching mechanism of natural and man-made systems. Boundary conditions of structures are crucial to predict and control their snap-buckling…

In this paper, we systematically study the dynamic snap-through behavior of a pre-deformed elastic ribbon by combining theoretical analysis, discrete numerical simulations, and experiments. By rotating one of its clamped ends with…

Snapping beams enable rapid geometric transitions through nonlinear instability, offering an efficient means of generating motion in soft robotic systems. In this study, a tendon-driven mechanism consisting of spiral-based metabeams was…

Many elastic structures have two possible equilibrium states: from umbrellas that become inverted in a sudden gust of wind, to nano-electromechanical switches, origami patterns and the hopper popper, which jumps after being turned…

Efforts to modulate the electronic properties of atomically thin crystalline nanoribbons requires precise control over their morphology. Here, we perform atomistic simulations on freestanding graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) to first identify…

Morphology mediates the interplay between the structure and electronic transport in atomically thin nanoribbons such as graphene as the relaxation of edge stresses occurs preferentially via out-of-plane deflections. In the case of…

We address the mechanics of an elastic ribbon subjected to twist and tensile load. Motivated by the classical work of Green and a recent experiment that discovered a plethora of morphological instabilities, we introduce a comprehensive…

Grip, walk, crawl, and jump. Soft robots are integrated functional structures composed of compliant mechanisms, whose activity spans various industrial applications such as surgery, healthcare, surveillance, and even planetary exploration.…

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…

Snapping mechanisms are investigated for an elastic strip with ends imposed to move and rotate in time. Attacking the problem analytically via Euler's elastica and the second variation of the total potential energy, the number of stable…

Bifurcation of an elastic structure crucially depends on the curvature of the constraints against which the ends of the structure are prescribed to move, an effect which deserves more attention than it has received so far. In fact, we show…

When a ribbon or tube is twisted far enough it forms buckles and wrinkles. Its new geometry can be strikingly ordered, or hopelessly disordered. Here we study this process in a tube with hybrid boundary conditions: one end a cylinder, and…

Topology is an important determinant of the behavior of a great number of condensed-matter systems, but until recently has played a minor role in elasticity. We develop a theory for the deformations of a class of twisted non-Euclidean…

Helical ribbons arise in many biological and engineered systems, often driven by anisotropic surface stress, residual strain, and geometric or elastic mismatch between layers of a laminated composite. A full mathematical analysis is…