Full Program »
Bioinspired mechanics of reinforced thin rod buckling in elastic medium
Rigid thin elastic fibers embedded within a soft matrix are ubiquitous in biology, for instance, microtubules in cytoskeleton within living cells. In the oil industry, the constrained buckling of oil pipes is also a challenging problem. To understand the complex yet poorly understood physics of mechanical instability of such a system, we have built a mimic hard-soft fiber composite model system and studied its mechanical instability using micromechanical experiments and modeling. We show that the buckling rod follows an exponentially decaying profile. A linear model is proposed and shown to predict reasonably the mechanical behavior of such a system in short wavelength buckling regime. As deformation increases, however, a dynamic transition from the throughout short wavelength buckling regime to a localized failure regime is observed and analyzed. These findings provide insights into both microtubule mechanics and design principles towards biomimetic devices taking advantage of reinforced thin rod buckling instability.Author(s):
Wanliang Shan
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno
United States
Amir Mohammadi Nasab
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno
United States