Joël Marthelot (IUSTI - Marseille) - Morphing soft structures with instabilities

Buckling in thin structures is generally considered as a first step towards failure. Instead, we view mechanical and interfacial instabilities in structures as opportunities for scalable, reversible, and robust mechanisms that must first be understood predictively, and then harvested for their function. Three examples will be presented: (1) soft elastomeric actuators with controllable and tunable bending stiffness (2) a flexible fabric-based gripper that contracts radially upon inflation (3) deployable structures inspired by insect wing expansion. The main common feature underlying these various problems is the prominence of geometry, and its interplay with mechanics, in dictating complex mechanical behavior that is relevant and applicable over a wide range of length scales.