Related papers: Instabilities in elastomers and soft tissues
Here, we provide an overview of theoretical approaches to semiflexible polymers and their networks. Such semiflexible polymers have large bending rigidities that can compete with the entropic tendency of a chain to crumple up into a random…
The cells and tissues that make up our body juggle contradictory mechanical demands. It is crucial for their survival to be able to withstand large mechanical loads, but it is equally crucial for them to produce forces and actively change…
In a continuum description of materials, the stress tensor field $\bar{% \bar{\sigma}}$ quantifies the internal forces the neighbouring regions exert on a region of the material. The classical theory of elastic solids assumes that…
Soft solids and their surface deformations control the response of many natural and artificial systems. Yet, their underlying properties are vigorously debated, particularly for polymer networks. While molecular-scale theories predict no…
We explore the influence of particle softness and internal structure on both the bulk and interfacial rheological properties of colloidal suspensions. We probe bulk stresses by conventional rheology, by measuring the flow curves, shear…
Pull-in (or electro-mechanical) instability occurs when a drastic decrease in the thickness of a dielectric elastomer results in electrical breakdown, which limits the applications of dielectric devices. Here we derive the criteria for…
Biological growth is often driven by mechanical cues, such as changes in external pressure or tensile loading. Moreover, it is well known that many living tissues actively maintain a preferred level of mechanical internal stress, called the…
Filamentous bio-materials such as fibrin or collagen networks exhibit an enormous stiffening of their elastic moduli upon large deformations. This pronounced nonlinear behavior stems from a significant separation between the stiffnesses…
The natural impedance, or dynamic relationship between force and motion, of a human operator can determine the stability of exoskeletons that use interaction-torque feedback to amplify human strength. While human impedance is typically…
The elastocapillary instability of a flexible plate plunged in a liquid bath is analysed theoretically. We show that the plate can bend due to two separate destabilizing mechanisms, when the liquid is partially wetting the solid. For…
We describe size-varying cylindrical particles made from silicone elastomers that can serve as building blocks for robotic granular materials. The particle size variation, which is achieved by inflation, gives rise to changes in stiffness…
An unconstrained, non-linearly elastic, semi-infinite solid is maintained in a state of large static plane strain. A power-law relation between the pre-stretches is assumed and it is shown that this assumption is well-motivated physically…
We study the elasto-plastic behaviour of materials made of individual (discrete) objects, such as a liquid foam made of bubbles. The evolution of positions and mutual arrangements of individual objects is taken into account through…
Constitutive equations are derived for the viscoelastic behavior of particle-reinforced rubbers at isothermal loading with finite strains. A filled rubber is thought of as a composite medium where inclusions with high and low concentrations…
Elastic properties and internal states of isotropic sphere packings are studied by numerical simulations. Several numerical protocols to assemble dense configurations are compared. One, which imitates experiments with lubricated contacts,…
We discuss the nonlinear elastic response in scale invariant solids. Following previous work, we split the analysis into two basic options: according to whether scale invariance (SI) is a manifest or a spontaneously broken symmetry. In the…
The vertex model is widely used to describe the dynamics of epithelial tissues, because of its simplicity and versatility and the direct inclusion of biophysical parameters. Here, it is shown that quite generally, when cells modify their…
We study theoretically the shapes of biological tubes affected by various pathologies. When epithelial cells grow at an uncontrolled rate, the negative tension produced by their division provokes a buckling instability. Several shapes are…
Inspired by the cellular design of plant tissue, we present a new approach to make versatile, tough, highly water-swelling composites. We embed highly swelling hydrogel particles inside tough, water-permeable, elastomeric matrices. The…
Metallenes are atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials lacking a layered structure in the bulk form. They can be stabilized by nanoscale constrictions like pores in 2D covalent templates, but the isotropic metallic bonding makes…