Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 16: Membranes and Vesicles II

BP 16.6: Talk

Wednesday, March 20, 2024, 11:00–11:15, H 0112

Dense membrane packings: Predicting optimal configurations — •Stefanie Heyden¹ and Michael Ortiz² — ¹ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland — ²Caltech, Pasadena CA 91125, USA

In which way does a membrane fold to minimize its elastic energy? This question is directly tied to a better understanding of membrane packings encountered in nature, as well as facilitating the design of soft structures.

Here, we present a simple mathematical framework to predict optimal packing configurations of densely packed membranes. Membranes are represented by means of a director field and the corresponding boundary value problem is derived. Numerical solutions show foliations comprising many closed surfaces, based on which a distribution of cuts is introduced to minimize the total crease energy.

Keywords: membrane packings; director field method