Minimal surfaces with elastic and partially elastic boundary

Abstract

We study equilibrium surfaces for an energy which is a linear combination of the area and a second term which measures the bending and twisting of the boundary. Specifically, the twisting energy is given by the twisting of the Darboux frame. This energy is a modification of the Euler–Plateau functional considered by Giomi and Mahadevan (2012, Proc. R. Soc. A 468, 1851–1864), and a natural special case of the Kirchhoff–Plateau energy considered by Biria and Fried (2014, Proc. R. Soc. A 470, 20140368; 2015, Int. J. Eng. Sci. 94, 86–102).