I’m a graduate student working on non-equilibrium statistical physics in Prof. Narayanan Menon’s lab at UMass, Amherst. My research focus involves crumpling thin sheets, with varying elasticity, to study what happens when a nearly two dimensional object is forced into a small three dimensional space.
Although crumpled sheets are common and familiar, they’re puzzling because they form stiff structures while maintaining very low volume fractions. Moreover, we can find naturally occurring examples of crumpling at largely varying sizes. For example, younger mountain ranges such as the Himalayas have sharp peaks connected by flat facets, reminiscent of a crumpled piece of paper. The visual similarities of these surfaces inspire us to search for a universal description of highly deformed thin sheets.
To probe the interior of a crumpled ball, we use X-Ray and optical tomography and get a beautifully three-dimensional view of the surface. We can then begin quantifying the sheet’s underlying geometry and mechanical properties.