Discrete Elastic Rod (DER) is a computational method used to simulate the highly nonlinear mechanical behavior of slender, flexible structures where length exceeds the cross-section.

DER discretizes the rod into a chain of nodes and flexible edges. Each edge uses a reference frame to track orientation, accurately capturing complex behaviors like bending, twisting, and stretching.

I implemented a DER formulation from scratch in MATLAB. This object-oriented code serves as the in-house numerical tool for my Ph.D. research on morphing systems.

In this project I learned about nonlinear mechanics, object-oriented programming and large-scale code management. The project is availale on GitHub: https://github.com/asifur-r/der