Transition to stress focusing for locally curved sheets

Thomas Barois (1) , Ilyes Jalisse (1) , Loïc Tadrist (2) , Emmanuel Virot (3)

1 LOMA - Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine
2 ISM - Institut des Sciences du Mouvement Etienne Jules Marey
3 HAP2U - HAP2U

A rectangular thin elastic sheet is deformed by forcing a contact between two points at the middle of its length. A transition to buckling with stress focusing is reported for the sheets sufficiently narrow with a critical width proportional to the sheet length with an exponent 2/3 in the small thickness limit. Additionally, a spring network model is solved to explore the thick sheet limit and to validate the scaling behavior of the transition in the thin sheet limit. The numerical results reveal that buckling does not exist for the thickest sheets, and a stability criterion is established for the buckling of a curved sheet.

Domaines: Physique [physics]; Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]

Thomas Barois, Ilyes Jalisse, Loïc Tadrist, Emmanuel Virot. Transition to stress focusing for locally curved sheets. Physical Review E , 2021, 104 (1), ⟨10.1103/PhysRevE.104.014801⟩. ⟨hal-03285055⟩