Elastic rods in life- and material- sciences. A general integrable model

by Dr M. Sommacal (Università di Perugia), Prof. S. De Lillo (Università di Perugia)

Wednesday 12 Mar 2008, 16:00 → 18:00 Europe/Rome

aula Majorana - Edificio G. Marconi (Dip. di Fisica - Edificio G. Marconi)

The study of elastic deformations in thin rods has recently seen renewed interest due to the close connection between these systems and coarse-grained models of widespread application in life- and material- sciences. Until now, the analysis has been restricted to the solution of equilibrium equations for continuous models characterized by constant bendino and twisting elastic moduli and/or by isotropic rod section. However, more realistic models often require more general conditions: indeed this is the case whenever microscopic information issuing from atomistic simulations is to be transferred to analytic or semi-analytic coarse-grained or macroscopic models. We will show that integrable, indeed solvable, equations are obtained under quite general conditions and that regular (e.g. circular helical) solutions emerge from reasonable choices of elastic stiffnesses. This work has been carried out in collaboration with Maio Argeri and Vincenzo Barone (Università "Federico II" di Napoli) and Gaia Lupo (Università degli Studi di Perugia).