Abstract. The reviving study of the mechanics of large deformations in slender structures is a rapidly (re)burgeoning field, that is bringing together seemingly separate communities: from nanotechnology and physics to computer graphics and engineering. Recent work has shown that the strong non-linearities arising primarily from geometry can be responsible for universal modes of deformation in the post-buckling regime of such systems. In this talk I will present our approach to study the mechanics of thin structures, where precision model experiments take a prominent role in probing and exploring the underlying behavior. This will be illustrated through two representative examples: i) deployment and coiling of transoceanic cables and carbon nanotubes onto rigid substrates and ii) switchable and tunable wrinkling of curved surfaces towards aerodynamic drag reduction. In both of these problems, once a theoretical framework has been developed and the underlying mechanics rationalized, we then aim at implementing it at scale of the original problem (small or large scale) towards practical applications.

Bio. Pedro Reis is the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research group (EGS.Lab: Elasticity, Geometry and Statistics Laboratory) is dedicated to the fundamental understanding of the mechanics of thin objects and their intrinsic geometric nonlinearities. Professor Reis received a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Manchester, UK (1999), a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Mathematics (Part III Maths) from St. John’s College and DAMTP, University of Cambridge (2000) and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Manchester, UK (2004). He then moved as a Post-Doc to the Benjamin Levich Institute for Physico-Chemical Hydrodynamics at the City College of New York (2004-2005). Between 2005 and 2007 he was a CNRS Post-Doc at the ESPCI in Paris. He joined MIT in the summer of 2007 as an Applied Mathematics Instructor in the Department of Mathematics before starting his current Assistant Professor appointment in July 2010.