Confined elastic developable surfaces: cylinders, cones and the elastica

Confined elastic developable surfaces: cylinders, cones and the elastica

Confined elastic developable surfaces: cylinders, cones and the elastica E. Cerda and L. Mahadevan,  Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (A),  461, 671-700, 2005.
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Abstract

We consider two of the simplest problems associated with the packing of a naturally
flat thin elastic sheet. Both problems involve packing the sheet into a hollow cylinder;
the first considers the partial contact of a cylindrically curved sheet with a cylindrical
surface, while the second considers the partial contact of a conically curved sheet with
the edge of a cylindrical surface. In each case, we solve the free-boundary problems to
determine the shape, response and stability of the confined surfaces. In particular, we
show that an exact description of both the cylindrical and conical structures is given
by solutions of the Elastica equation, allowing us to present a unified description
of a large class of elastic developable surfaces. This includes what is possibly the
simplest example of strain localization, occurring at a point and forming one of the
constituent elements of a crumpled elastic sheet.