Configurational forces on elastic structures

TL;DR

This paper reviews the concept of configurational forces in elastic structures, highlighting their influence on stability, applications like elastic rods and limbless locomotion, and their potential to open new research directions in mechanics.

Contribution

It introduces and reviews the role of configurational forces in elastic structures, emphasizing their applications and impact on stability and mechanics research.

Findings

Configurational forces can induce configuration changes in elastic structures.

Applications include elastic arm scales, elastic rod dripping, and torsional actuators.

Configurational forces significantly influence stability and locomotion mechanisms.

Abstract

The discovery of configurational forces acting on elastic structures and its initial applications are reviewed. Configurational forces are related to the possibility that an elastic structure can change its configuration, thus inducing a variation in the potential energy. This concept has already led to several applications (the elastica arm scale, the dripping of an elastic rod, and the torsional actuator), has been shown to strongly affect stability, and to be related to limbless locomotion. It is believed that these results will open a new research territory in mechanics.