Mechanics of thin structures made of soft solids

由软材料制成的薄结构在自然界（树叶、皮肤等软组织）和工程设计（气球、帐篷）中无处不在。本计画的目的是利用非线性弹性理论来了解薄结构的变形特性。特别重要的是对薄结构在膨胀过程中的起皱现象、屈曲和极限点不稳定性进行建模。皮肤皱纹是一种机械不稳定性形式，通常由于含水量/温度/老化效应的变化而发生。从机械的角度来看，这些褶皱与气球，帐篷，塑料食品包装和其他无生命结构中发现的褶皱相同。借助非线性弹性力学的数学模型，我们的目标是确定这些系统中控制屈曲和屈曲的偏微分方程。这些方程将使用开放源码软件的计算技术来解决。

Thin structures made of soft materials are ubiquitous in nature (soft tissues such as leaves, skin) and in engineering design (balloons, tents). This project aims at using the theory of nonlinear elasticity to develop an understanding of deformation characteristics of thin structures. Of particular importance is to model the wrinkling phenomenon and buckling and limit point instabilities during inflation in thin structures.Wrinkles in skin are a form of mechanical instability that usually occurs due to change in moisture content/ temperature/ ageing effects. From a mechanical perspective, these wrinkles are same as those found in balloons, tents, plastic food packaging and other inanimate structures. With the help of mathematical models of nonlinear elasticity, we aim to determine the partial differential equations that govern wrinkling and buckling in these systems. These equations will be solved using computational techniques using open source software.