Overview
With an original positioning across Computer Graphics and Computational Mechanics, the ELAN team strives to model, simulate and understand the physics of visually rich mechanical phenomena, such as cloth folding, ribbon coiling, plant growth, granular flowing, or hair entangling. Target applications encompass the digital entertainment industry (e.g., feature film animation, special effects), as well as virtual prototyping for the mechanical engineering industry (e.g., aircraft manufacturing, cosmetology); though very different, these two application fields require predictive and scalable models for capturing complex mechanical phenomena at the macroscopic scale. An orthogonal objective is the improvement of our understanding of natural physical and biological processes involving slender structures (such as plant growth, granular flows, DNA supercoiling), through active collaborations with soft matter physicists.
The ELAN team is focussed on four main research axes:
- The numerical modeling of slender elastic structures (rods, ribbons, plates, and shells), especially when prone to large displacements and various boundary conditions, at the origin of buckling
- The discrete handling of frictional contact problems, within the framework of nonsmooth contact mechanics
- The modeling, analysis and solving of inverse elastic design problems with applications in non-invasive parameter estimation.
- The physical understanding of collective behaviours originated from a microstructure (such as a large collection of thin rigid and/or elastic bodies), and the connection between micro and macro physical properties. Typical examples encompass fibrous and granular materials, and mixtures of the two.
To achieve its goals, the team has adopted a transverse approach, striving to master as finely as possible the entire modelling pipeline, from the mechanical modelling of phenomena to the discretisation of related equations, their numerical solving, and their validation thanks to some quantitative confrontation against lab experiments and theories. This modelling approach, purely guided at each step by physical principles, involves a pluridisciplinary combination of scientific skills across Mechanics and Physics, Applied Mathematics, and Computer Science.
What's new
Fibres, ribbons and feathers: 3 papers to be presented at ACM Siggraph 2024!
In 2024 the ELAN team will present three papers at ACM Siggraph 2024 in Denver: Fibres (TOG paper): a new exact detection scheme between two smooth curves, which removes spurrious artifacts in contact forces with fibres assemblies. Our algorithm is particularly well-suited for the super-helix discretisation of Kirchhoff thin elastic…
Test of time award at Siggraph Asia 2023
Our 2011 paper entitled “A hybrid iterative solver for robustly capturing Coulomb friction in hair dynamics” has been awarded a Test of Time Award at Siggraph Asia 2023 in Sydney. This paper introduced the first nonsmooth algorithm able to capture dry friction in flexible fibre assemblies in a fast and…
