Traveling Waves in Elastic Rods with Arbitrary Curvature and Torsion
Silvana De Lillo
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Università degli Studi di Perugia
Date and time:
Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - 4:00pm
Location:
ECOT 226
Abstract:
The dynamic Kirchhoff equations, describing a thin elastic rod of infinite length, are considered in connection with the study of the conformations of polymeric chains. A novel special traveling wave solution that can be interpreted as a conformational soliton propagating at constant speed is obtained, featuring arbitrary non-constant curvature and torsion of the rod, in the simple case of constant crosssection, homogeneous density and elastic isotropy. Several examples are discussed.The stability of such solution with respect to small perturbations is also analyzed in terms of the elastic stiffnesses characterizing the material.