  In this paper we report numerically observed spontaneous vanishing of mean
curvature on a developable cone made by pushing a thin elastic sheet into a
circular container. We show that this feature is independent of thickness of
the sheet, the supporting radius and the amount of deflection. Several variants
of developable cone are studied to examine the necessary conditions that lead
to the vanishing of mean curvature. It is found that the presence of
appropriate amount of radial stress is necessary. The developable cone geometry
somehow produces the right amount of radial stress to induce just enough radial
curvature to cancel the conical azimuthal curvature. In addition, the circular
symmetry of supporting container edge plays an important role. With an
elliptical supporting edge, the radial curvature overcompensates the azimuthal
curvature near the minor axis and undercompensates near the major axis. Our
numerical finding is verified by a crude experiment using a reflective plastic
sheet. We expect this finding to have broad importance in describing the
general geometrical properties of forced crumpling of thin sheets.
