On Membranes, Tension Fields, and the Human Skin

Abstract

In this Note we extend and simplify the theory of the deformation of human skin developed in two previous reports. We show that the equations of membranes constrained to slide over deformable mandrels can be written in terms of the unknown law of transformation between coordinate systems on the undeformed and deformed membranes. We also derive the precise equations of tension field theory for membranes undergoing arbitrarily large deformations.