Softly Constrained Films
arXiv:1304.1077 · doi:10.1039/C3SM50484K
Abstract
The shape of materials is often subject to a number of geometric constraints that limit the size of the system or fix the structure of its boundary. In soft and biological materials, however, these constraints are not always hard, but are due to other physical mechanisms that affect the overall force balance. A capillary film spanning a flexible piece of wire or a cell anchored to a compliant substrate by mean of adhesive contacts are examples of these softly constrained systems in the macroscopic and microscopic world. In this article I review some of the important mathematical and physical developments that contributed to our understanding of shape formation in softly constrained films and their recent application to the mechanics of adherent cells.
Review article, 21 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Soft Matter
References in corpus (8)
- Unfolding the Sulcus
- Scaling of Traction Forces with Size of Cohesive Cell Colonies
- Effect of adhesion geometry and rigidity on cellular force distributions
- Scale and Nature of Sulcification Patterns
- Minimal surfaces bounded by elastic lines
- Cylindrical equilibrium shapes of fluid membranes
- Laplace pressure as a surface stress in fluid vesicles
- Polymorphism and bistability in adherent cells