Dynamics of elastic rods in perfect friction contact.

One of the most challenging and basic problems in elastic rod dynamics is a description of rods in contact that prevents any unphysical self-intersections. Most previous works addressed this issue through the introduction of short-range potentials. We study the dynamics of elastic rods with perfect rolling contact which is physically relevant for rods with a rough surface. Such dynamics cannot be described by the introduction of any kind of potential. We show that, surprisingly, the presence of rolling contact in rod dynamics leads to highly complex behavior even for the evolution of small disturbances.