Mechanics of confinement
Slender structures like plates and shells are abundant in nature, manufacturing, and engineering, and often are confined in some way by their environment. We have studied how geometry dictates buckling patterns in plates and shells as they are confined.
Confined plates
Thin sheets respond to confinement by wrinkling, as in the edges of leaves or cooked bacon, or by forming sharp vertices and ridges, as in crumpled wrapping paper (stress focusing). In intermediate confinement regimes, we can observe transitions between these motifs. Buckling patterns and associated forces are highly sensitive to geometry, which we explore in this work.
- L. Stein-Montalvo, A. Guerra, K. Almedia, O. Kodio, and D.P. Holmes. Wrinkling and developable cones in centrally confined sheets. Physical Review E 108, 035002 (2023) doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.108.035002
Physical Review E (2023)
Confined shells
We study the buckling patterns that emerge in shell structures that vary widely in their geometries (i.e. average Gaussian and mean, or Germain, curvatures). We find that single geometric parameter governs the overall buckling behavior of a range of shells.
- L. Stein-Montalvo, P. Costa, M. Pezzulla, and D.P. Holmes. Buckling of geometrically confined shells. Soft Matter, 15, 1215–1222 (2019) Front cover. doi: 10.1039/c8sm02035c
