# Folding pathways to crumpling in thermalized elastic frames

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how thermal fluctuations induce folding and crumpling in elastic frames with holes, revealing a sequence of origami-like folds as temperature increases, using molecular dynamics simulations.

## Contribution

It introduces a detailed simulation study of crumpling pathways in elastic frames with holes, highlighting the role of origami-like folding at different scales.

## Key findings

- Folding occurs in a sequence of origami-like steps with increasing temperature.
- Normal-normal correlation functions quantify the number of folds at various temperatures.
- The system approaches a crumpled phase through a hierarchical folding process.

## Abstract

The mechanical properties of thermally excited two-dimensional crystalline membranes can depend dramatically on their geometry and topology. A particularly relevant example is the effect on the crumpling transition of holes in the membrane. Here we use molecular dynamics simulations to study the case of elastic frames (sheets with a single large hole in the center) and find that the system approaches the crumpled phase through a sequence of origami-like folds at decreasing length scales when temperature is increased. We use normal-normal correlation functions to quantify the temperature-dependent number of folds.