Publications related to Flexible Structures Laboratory

Instabilities in Elastic and Magneto-Elastic Beams and Shells: from Shell Buckling to the Design of a Programmable Braille Reader

In this thesis, we conduct a comprehensive investigation into structural instabilities of both elastic and magneto-elastic beams and shells, resulting in a creative proposal to design a programmable braille reader. Methodologically, we combine numerical si ...

EPFL2024

Short-term behavior of glass fiber-polymer composite bending-active elastica beam under service load application

Thomas Keller, Tara Habibi, Landolf-Giosef-Anastasios Rhode-Barbarigos

Bending-active elastica beam is a structural configuration that is based on the elastic deformation of an initially straight beam. This deformation occurs when horizontal displacements are applied to a sliding support, causing the beam to bend into an arch ...

2024

Mechanics of Physical Knots: From Filaments in Contact to Surgical Suturing

Paul Johanns

In this thesis, we study the mechanics of tight physical knots. Knots are omnipresent in surgery, climbing, and sailing, with disastrous consequences when the filament or the rope fails to perform its function. Even if the importance of mechanical analysis ...

EPFL2023

Soft functional fibers for mechanical sensing and actuation

Andreas Leber

The measurement and generation of mechanical deformations is a key functionality in health monitoring, human-machine interaction, and soft robotics. However, current methods typically rely on small and hard transducers, which result in poor performance, cu ...

EPFL2021

Instability of a thin viscous film flowing under an inclined substrate: steady patterns

François Gallaire, Gioele Mariano Nicolò Balestra, Pier Giuseppe Ledda, Gaëtan Pierre Clément Lerisson

The flow of a thin film coating the underside of an inclined substrate is studied. We measure experimentally spatial growth rates and compare them to the linear stability analysis of a flat film modelled by the lubrication equation. When forced by a statio ...

Cambridge University Press2020

Out-of-plane instability of thin reinforced concrete walls under seismic loading

Angelica Rosso

Out of plane instability of reinforced concrete walls is a failure mechanism observed rather recently following the earthquakes in Chile (2010) and New Zealand (2011). Global out of plane instability is a phenomenon that may occur in thin walls, subjected ...

EPFL2018

Numerical Modelling of Two-Phase Flow with Moving Boundary Fitted Meshes

Erik Gros

In this thesis, a computational approach is used to study two-phase flow including phase change by direct numerical simulation. This approach follows the interface with an adaptive moving mesh. The incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are solved, in tw ...

EPFL2018

Patterns of Carbon Nanotubes by Flow-Directed Deposition on Substrates with Architectured Topographies

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis

We develop and perform continuum mechanics simulations of carbon nanotube (CNT) deployment directed by a combination of surface topography and rarefied gas flow. We employ the discrete elastic rods method to model the deposition of CNT as a slender elastic ...

American Chemical Society (ACS)2018

Numerical simulation of mechanical deformation of semi-solid material using a level-set based finite element method

Roland Logé

In this work, a level-set based finite element method was used to numerically evaluate the mechanical behavior in a small deformation range of semi-solid materials with different microstructure configurations. For this purpose, a finite element model of th ...

Institute of Physics2017

Axially equilibrated displacement-based beam element for simulating the cyclic inelastic behaviour of RC members

Katrin Beyer, João Saraiva Esteves Pacheco de Almeida, Danilo Tarquini

Distributed plasticity beam elements are commonly used to evaluate limit state demands for performance based analysis of reinforced concrete (RC) structures. Strain limits are often preferred to drift limits since they directly relate to damage and are the ...

2017