Making do with less: Optimal wrapping of liquid droplets with ultrathin sheets

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• Joseph Paulsen, Syracuse University
• Friday 15 April 2016, 16:00-17:00
• Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Meeting Room 3 .

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Aurelia Honerkamp-Smith.

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Many objects in nature and industry are enclosed in protective wrappings. I will show how an initially-flat polymer film wraps a water droplet whose volume is gradually decreased. The resulting conformations are highly non-axisymmetric and are patterned with small-scale wrinkles, folds, and crumples, all interacting in a non-uniform curved geometry. Remarkably, the essence of the wrapping process can be understood without describing any of these complicated small-scale features. In particular, a thin sheet spontaneously maximizes the volume of the enclosed liquid, given a fixed area of the initially flat sheet. I will close by discussing the application of this geometric principle to other settings.​

This talk is part of the Fluids Seminar series.

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