Nonlinear Static Stability of Imperfect Bio-Inspired Helicoidal Composite Beams

Bio-Inspired Self-Actuating Composite Materials

Generalization of helicoidal beams for short pulses.

A generalization to the transient regime is developed for waves with a phase singularity of the screw type. These singular waves are commonly called vortices for all kind of waves as, for instance, optical vortex or acoustical vortex. We generalize the definition of vortices to get an azimuthal velocity invariant for all the frequency components contained in the broad spectrum of a short pulse....

Designing Bio-Inspired Composite Materials for Medical Applications

Composite materials are multi-phased combinations of two or several components, which acquire new characteristic properties that the individual constituents, by themselves, cannot obtain. A composite material typically consists of a certain matrix containing one or more fillers which can be made up of particles, sheets or fibers. When at least one of these phases has dimensions less than 100 nm...

Soft network composite materials with deterministic and bio-inspired designs

Hard and soft structural composites found in biology provide inspiration for the design of advanced synthetic materials. Many examples of bio-inspired hard materials can be found in the literature; far less attention has been devoted to soft systems. Here we introduce deterministic routes to low-modulus thin film materials with stress/strain responses that can be tailored precisely to match the...

Geometrically Nonlinear Theory of Composite Beams with Deformable Cross Sections

Aone-dimensional theory of slender structures with heterogeneous anisotropic material distribution is presented. It expands Cosserat’s description of beam kinematics by allowing deformation of the beam cross sections. For that purpose, a Ritz approximation is introduced on the cross-sectional displacement field, which defines additional elastic degrees of freedom (finite-sectionmodes) in the on...