Folding Flakes: the sedimentation of thin elastic sheets in a viscous fluid

目前人们对所谓的二维材料很感兴趣，因为它们具有不同寻常的和吸引人的机械和电学性质。它们的大部分处理是在流体环境中进行的，例如，在通过离心法对分散的石墨烯薄片进行尺寸选择或通过喷墨印刷进行沉积的过程中。薄片的大纵横比意味着，尽管它们具有令人印象深刻的平面内刚度，但它们具有非常小的弯曲刚度，因此容易因周围流体施加在它们上的牵引力而变形。由此产生的强烈的流体-结构相互作用不仅影响单个薄片的动力学，而且影响它们的集体行为。本项目的目的是对粘性流体中弹性薄片的行为进行系统的理论/计算研究。具体来说，我们希望建立如何流动引起的变形影响的沉积等表，特别注意的效果，螺旋不稳定性和发展的破坏性挫折模式：他们如何出现在规范形状（圆形，矩形，多边形，.）它们又是如何影响纸张的沉降的呢？

There is much current interest in so-called two-dimensional materials because of their unusual and attractive mechanical and electrical properties. Much of their processing is performed in a fluid environment, e.g., during the size selection of dispersed graphene flakes by centrifugation, or their deposition by ink-jet printing. The flakes' large aspect ratio implies that despite their impressive in-plane stiffness they have a very small bending stiffness and are therefore easily deformed by the traction that the surrounding fluid exerts on them. The resulting strong fluid-structure interaction affects not only the dynamics of individual flakes but also their collective behaviour.The aim of this project is to perform a systematic theoretical/computational study of the behaviour of thin elastic sheets in a viscous fluid. Specifically, we wish to establish how the flow-induced deformation affects the sedimentation of such sheets, paying particular attention to the effect of wrinkling instabilities and the development of symmetry-breaking frustrated patterns: how do they arise in sheets of canonical shapes (circular, rectangular, polygonal,...) and how do they affect the sheets' sedimentation?