Infinitesimal plane wrinkling of inextensible networks (Q1096452)

Subject of this well written paper is the infinitesimal plane deformation of continuously wrinkled membranes. The sheets considered consist of two orthogonal families of fibers. The fibers which do not possess bending stiffness are inextensible but are allowed to shorten by continuous buckling on an infinitesimal scale. Among other results the authors show that in most cases wrinkle lines are axes of positive principal stress with zero principal stress perpendicular to them. This is considered a basic postulate of tension field theory by other authors. From the point of view of application zero bending stiffness seems unrealistic but the results presented constitute a considerable contribution to the theory of sheets.