Related papers: Twist-induced snapping in a bent elastic ribbon
The motion of flexible fibers through structured fluidic environments is ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications. Most often, their dynamics results from the complex interplay between internal elastic stresses, contact forces and…
The common sense regarding twisting or untwisting a ribbon is that it requires the application of an external rotation to happen. However, at nanoscale, the application of precise amounts of rotation on a nanoribbon is not a trivial task.…
We consider the dynamic snapping instability of elastic beams and shells. Using the Kirchhoff rod and F\"{o}ppl-von K\'{a}rm\'{a}n plate equations, we study the stability, deformation modes, and snap-through dynamics of an elastic arch with…
Helical objects are often implemented in electronic or mechanical micro-systems, requiring a precise understanding of their mechanical properties. While helices formed by cylindrical filaments have been intensely investigated, little is…
We study the snapping instability of a spherical elastic shell induced by a viscous flow, the umbrella flipping problem when life is at low Reynolds numbers. We combine precision desktop-scale experiments, fluid-structure simulations, shell…
Rigidity is an emergent property of materials - it is not a feature of individual components that comprise the structure, but instead arises from interactions between many constituent parts. Recently, it has been recognized that…
We study the dynamics of snap-through when viscoelastic effects are present. To gain analytical insight we analyse a modified form of the Mises truss, a single-degree-of-freedom structure, which features an `inverted' shape that snaps to a…
Bending the edge of a thin elastic material promotes rigidity far from its clamped boundary. However, this curvature-induced rigidity can be overwhelmed by gravity or other external loading, resulting in elastic buckling and large…
The buckling and twisting of slender, elastic fibers is a deep and well-studied field. A slender elastic rod that is twisted with respect to a fixed end will spontaneously form a loop, or hockle, to relieve the torsional stress that builds.…
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…
Twisted assemblies of filaments in ropes, cables and bundles are essential structural elements in wide use in macroscopic materials as well as within the cells and tissues of living organisms. We develop the unique, non-linear elastic…
We use molecular dynamics to study the vibrations of a thermally fluctuating two-dimensional elastic membrane clamped at both ends. We directly extract the eigenmodes from resonant peaks in the frequency domain of the time-dependent height…
Knots across various length scales, from micro to macro-scales, such as polymers, DNA, shoelaces, and surgery, serving their unique mechanical properties. The shape of ideal knots has been extensively studied in the context of knot theory,…
The preference of thin flat sheets to bend rather than stretch, combined with results from Geometry, mean that changes in a thin sheet's Gaussian curvature are prohibitively expensive. As a result, an imposed curvature in one principal…
The statistical mechanics of a ribbon polymer made up of two semiflexible chains is studied using both analytical techniques and simulation. The system is found to have a crossover transition at some finite temperature, from a type of short…
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…
We study the geometrically nonlinear behavior of uniformly compressed tensegrity prisms, through fully elastic and rigid--elastic models. The presented models predict a variety of mechanical behaviors in the regime of large displacements,…
A theoretical description of the weakly nonlinear and mode-dependent dynamics of a nanoscale beam that is under intrinsic tension is developed. A full analysis of the dynamic range of the beam over a wide range of conditions is presented.…
Flow in soft materials encompasses a wide range of viscous, plastic and elastic phenomena which provide challenges to modelling at the microscopic level. To create a controlled flow, we perform falling ball viscometry tests on packings of…
One cannot pull an open, curved string along itself. This fact is clearly reflected in the unwrapping motion of a string or chain as it is dragged around an object, and implies strong consequences for slender structures in passive…