%0 Journal Article %D 2014 %T Swelling-induced and controlled curving in layered gel beams %A Alessandro Lucantonio %A Paola Nardinocchi %A Matteo Pezzulla %X We describe swelling-driven curving in originally straight and non-homogeneous beams. We present and verify a structural model of swollen beams, based on a new point of view adopted to describe swelling-induced deformation processes in bilayered gel beams, that is based on the split of the swelling-induced deformation of the beam at equilibrium into two components, both depending on the elastic properties of the gel. The method allows us to: (i) determine beam stretching and curving, once assigned the characteristics of the solvent bath and of the non-homogeneous beam, and (ii) estimate the characteristics of non-homogeneous flat gel beams in such a way as to obtain, under free-swelling conditions, three-dimensional shapes. The study was pursued by means of analytical, semi-analytical and numerical tools; excellent agreement of the outcomes of the different techniques was found, thus confirming the strength of the method. %I Royal Society of London %G en %U http://urania.sissa.it/xmlui/handle/1963/34987 %1 35229 %2 Mathematics %4 1 %$ Approved for entry into archive by Lucio Lubiana (lubiana@sissa.it) on 2015-11-12T09:25:24Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 0 %R 10.1098/rspa.2014.0467