Stability of \(n\)-covered circles for elastic rods with constant planar intrinsic curvature. (Q5943541)

The authors study the stability of intrinsically curved non-twisted elastic rod. It is assumed that the rod is inextensible and unshearable. Also it has constant intrinsic curvature and constant twisting and both (in- and out-of-plane) bending stiffnesses. An index is defined as the dimension of maximal subspace of allowed variations on which the second variation of energy functional is negative. An equilibrium configuration is stable if its index is equal to zero. The authors also derive a simple expression for the index as a function of intrinsic curvature, the ratio between out-of-plane bending stiffness and in-plane bending stiffness, and the ratio of the twisting stiffness and in-plane bending stiffness. The results are verified with numerical calculations for the case of \(n\)-covered circles for intrinsically curved and straight rods.