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News
February 13, 2023
New paper on structural instabilities!
Our work on "Experimentally probing the stability of thin-shell structures under pure bending" just got published in a special edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A!
We explored how complex buckling modes form and compete in lightweight thin-shell space structures by experimentally introducing local probing force perturbations. We unveil the rich stability landscape governing the buckling behavior of these structures, which paves the way to engineering 1) ultra-lightweight yet ultra-stable structures and 2) multistable structures with novel properties.
January 29, 2023
AIAA SciTech 2023
Prof. Royer presented our work on Electrostatically Actuated Thin-Shell Space Structures at AIAA SciTech 2023. By embedding conductive materials into ultrathin high strain composite shells, we created deployable structures capable of changing shape and micron-scale curvature correction. Find the paper here.
July 17, 2022
New paper out!
Our paper Probing the stability of thin-shell space structures under bending is out in the International Journal of Solids and Structures! When and how will a structure buckle? How sensitive is this phenomenon to perturbations? Revisiting how we approach these questions can enable lighter and larger structures in space. In this recent paper co-authored with John Hutchinson (Harvard) and Sergio Pellegrino (Caltech), we apply a methodology recently developed for cylindrical and spherical shells to more complex space structures. We "poke" the structure at multiple locations and compute how much disturbance (energy barrier) is required to cause local buckling. By doing so in a systematic way, we can compute "stability landscapes of shell buckling" which describe the sensitivity of the shell buckling phenomenon, and can enable the derivation of very efficient buckling criteria.
June 7, 2022
Join the team
We are looking for students to join the lab. If you are interested, don't hesitate to contact us (fabienr@cornell.edu). More details
April 18, 2022
Fabien Royer
joins Cornell
Fabien is joining the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering as an assistant professor. He will be leading the Cornell Space Structures Laboratory starting January 2023.
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