Minimal Design of the Elephant Trunk as an Active Filament.

One of the key problems in active materials is the control of shape through actuation. A fascinating example of such control is the elephant trunk, a long, muscular, and extremely dexterous organ with multiple vital functions. The elephant trunk is an object of fascination for biologists, physicists, and children alike. Its versatility relies on the intricate interplay of multiple unique physical mechanisms and biological design principles. Here, we explore these principles using the theory of active filaments and build, theoretically, computationally, and experimentally, a minimal model that explains and accomplishes some of the spectacular features of the elephant trunk.

• Publication year

  2024

• Venue

  Physical Review Letters

• Publication date

  2024-02-14

• Fields of study

  Biology, Materials Science, Physics, Engineering, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1103/physrevlett.132.248402arXiv 2402.09625PMID 38949331
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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