Publications by Matteo Pezzulla

Fluid-structure interactions of bristled wings: the trade-off between weight and drag

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Matteo Pezzulla, Yuexia Luna Lin

The smallest flying insects often have bristled wings resembling feathers or combs. We combined experiments and three-dimensional numerical simulations to investigate the trade-off between wing weight and drag generation. In experiments of bristled strips, ...

Royal Soc2023

Tapered foils favor traveling-wave kinematics to enhance the performance of flapping propulsion

Karen Ann J Mulleners, Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Matteo Pezzulla

We report results from an experimental investigation on the fluid-structure interactions of flapping foils with tapered thickness profiles actuated in a quiescent viscous fluid. We seek to assess the propulsive performance of two sets of flapping foils; on ...

2022

A geometrically exact model for thin magneto-elastic shells

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Matteo Pezzulla, Dong Yan

We develop a reduced model for hard-magnetic, thin, linear-elastic shells that can be actuated through an external magnetic field, with geometrically exact strain measures. Assuming a reduced kinematics based on the Kirchhoff-Love assumption, we derive a r ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2022

A Kirchhoff-like theory for hard magnetic rods under geometrically nonlinear deformation in three dimensions

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Matteo Pezzulla

Magneto-rheological elastomers (MREs) are functional materials that can be actuated by applying an external magnetic field. MREs comprise a composite of hard magnetic particles dispersed into a nonmagnetic elastomeric (soft) matrix. Hard MREs have been rec ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2022

The remarkable bending properties of perforated plates

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Matteo Pezzulla, Samuel Jean Bernard Poincloux

2021

Magneto-active elastic shells with tunable buckling strength

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Matteo Pezzulla, Dong Yan, Arefeh Abbasi

Shell buckling is central in many biological structures and advanced functional materials, even if, traditionally, this elastic instability has been regarded as a catastrophic phenomenon to be avoided for engineering structures. Either way, predicting crit ...

Nature Research2021

Deformation of porous flexible strip in low and moderate Reynolds number flows

François Gallaire, Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Matteo Pezzulla

We present results from a combined experimental and numerical investigation of the fluid-structure interaction of cantilevered porous flexible strips, towed through a fluid bath. We characterize the steady-state deformation of the strips and their associat ...

AMER PHYSICAL SOC2020

Buckling of pressurized spherical shells containing a through-thickness defect

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Matteo Pezzulla, Dong Yan

We present a study on the pressure buckling of thin, elastic spherical shells containing a thickness defect. Methodologically, we combine precision model experiments, finite element simulations, and a reduced axisymmetric shell model. We observe qualitativ ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2020

Nonlinear buckling behavior of a complete spherical shell under uniform external pressure and homogenous natural curvature

Matteo Pezzulla

In this work, we consider the stability of a spherical shell under combined loading from a uniform external pressure and a homogenous natural curvature. Nonmechanical stimuli, such as one that tends to modify the rest curvature of an elastic body, are prev ...

AMER PHYSICAL SOC2020

Hydrodynamic loading of perforated disks in creeping flows

François Gallaire, Lorenzo Siconolfi, Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Matteo Pezzulla

We present results from an experimental investigation of a viscous fluid driven through and around porous disks at low and moderate Reynolds number conditions: Re = O(10(-4)-10(-3)) and Re = O(1-10). Specifically, we quantify the hydrodynamic drag that the ...

AMER PHYSICAL SOC2019

Evolution of critical buckling conditions in imperfect bilayer shells through residual swelling

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Matteo Pezzulla, Dong Yan, Anna Lee

We propose and investigate a minimal mechanism that makes use of differential swelling to modify the critical buckling conditions of elastic bilayer shells, as measured by the knockdown factor. Our shells contain an engineered defect at the north pole and ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2019

A Weak Form Implementation of Nonlinear Axisymmetric Shell Equations With Examples

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Matteo Pezzulla

We present a weak form implementation of the nonlinear axisymmetric shell equations. This implementation is suitable to study the nonlinear deformations of axisymmetric shells, with the capability of considering a general mid-surface shape, non-homogeneous ...

2019

Buckling of geometrically confined shells

Matteo Pezzulla

We study the periodic buckling patterns that emerge when elastic shells are subjected to geometric confinement. Residual swelling provides access to range of shapes (saddles, rolled sheets, cylinders, and spherical sections) which vary in their extrinsic a ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2019