Alexandre Huynen

Eulerian Formulation of Elastic Rods

In numerous biological, medical and engineering applications, elastic rods are constrained to deform inside or around tube-like surfaces. To solve efficiently this class of problems, the equations governing the deflection of elastic rods are reformulated within the Eulerian framework of this generic tubular constraint defined as a perfectly stiff normal ringed surface. This reformulation hinges on describing the rod-deformed configuration by means of its relative position with respect to a reference curve, defined as the axis or spine curve of the constraint, and on restating the rod local equilibrium in terms of the curvilinear coordinate parametrizing this curve. Associated with a segmentation strategy, which partitions the global problem into a sequence of rod segments either in continuous contact with the constraint or free of contact (except for their extremities), this re-parametrization not only trivializes the detection of new contacts but also transforms these free boundary problems into classic two-points boundary-value problems and suppresses the isoperimetric constraints resulting from the imposition of the rod position at the extremities of each rod segment.

Poroelastic Center of Dilation Revisited

A comparison of the original elastic solution for the center of dilation with the classic Lam´ e solution reveals an unexpected dependence of the center of dilation solution on Poisson’s ratio. This inconsistency is investigated by means of two alternative representations of the singularity which lead to the identification of a compressed zone inside the singularity. The poroelastic equivalent to this nucleus of strain is shown to be the superposition of the elastic one with drained material parameters and an instantaneous point fluid source associated with a finite volume of fluid that is expelled from the compressed region inside the singularity and is injected in the porous medium.