"Measuring geometric frustration in twisted inextensible filament bundl" by Andreea Panaitescu, Gregory M. Grason et al.
 

Physics

Measuring geometric frustration in twisted inextensible filament bundles

Document Type

Article

Abstract

We investigate with experiments and mapping the structure of a hexagonally ordered filament bundle that is held near its ends and progressively twisted around its central axis. The filaments are free to slide relative to each other and are further held under tension-free boundary conditions. Measuring the bundle packing with micro x-ray imaging, we find that the filaments develop the helical rotation Ω imposed at the boundaries. We then show that the observed structure is consistent with a mapping of the filament positions to disks packed on a dual non-Euclidean surface with a Gaussian curvature which increases with twist. We further demonstrate that the mean interfilament distance is minimal on the surface, which can be approximated by a hemisphere with an effective curvature Keff=3Ω2. Examining the packing on the dual surface, we analyze the geometric frustration of packing in twisted bundles and find the core to remain relatively hexagonally ordered with interfilament strains growing from the bundle center, driving the formation of defects at the exterior of highly twisted bundles.

Publication Title

Physical Review E

Publication Date

5-31-2017

Volume

95

Issue

5

ISSN

2470-0045

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevE.95.052503

Keywords

distortions & defects, elasticity, granular packing, pattern formation, filaments

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