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Physical understanding of the links between soil swelling, texture, structure, cracking, and sample size is of great interest for the physical understanding of many processes in the soil-air-water system and for applications in civil,…
Mechanical stretching behavior of poly(styrene-b-ethylene-co-butylene-b-styrene) (SEBS) triblock copolymer (87 wt% polyethylene-co-butylene (PEB) block, 13 wt% polystyrene (PS) block) was investigated by three different stretching and in…
Amorphous solids yield in strain-controlled protocols at a critical value of the strain. For larger strains the stress and energy display a generic complex serrated signal with elastic segments punctuated by sharp energy and stress plastic…
An analytical model that describes the interactive buckling of a thin-walled I-section strut under pure compression based on variational principles is presented. A formulation combining the Rayleigh--Ritz method and continuous displacement…
We present a numerical study of stretching monodomain smectic-A elastomer sheets, computed using the finite element method. When stretched parallel to the layer normal the microscopic layers in smectic elastomers are unstable to a…
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…
We investigate numerically the yielding transition of a two dimensional model amorphous solid under external shear. We use a scalar model in terms of values of the total local strain, that we derive from the full (tensorial) description of…
The statistical mechanics of a ribbon polymer made up of two semiflexible chains is studied using both analytical techniques and simulation. The system is found to have a crossover transition at some finite temperature, from a type of short…
The adhesive behaviour of biological attachment structures such as spider web anchorages is usually studied using single or multiple peeling models involving "tapes", i.e. one-dimensional contacts elements. This is an oversimplification for…
The buckling of a soft elastic sample under growth or swelling has highlighted a new interest in materials science, morphogenesis, and biology or physiology. Indeed, the change of mass or volume is a common fact of any living species, and…
Granular materials are known to separate by size under a variety of circumstances. Experiments presented here and elucidated by modeling and MD simulation document a new segregation mechanism, namely segregation by friction. The experiments…
Two coarse-grained models which capture some universal characteristics of stripe forming systems are stud- ied. At high temperatures, the structure factors of both models attain their maxima on a circle in reciprocal space, as a consequence…
Synthetic bio-molecular spiders with "legs" made of single-stranded segments of DNA can move on a surface which is also covered by single-stranded segments of DNA complementary to the leg DNA. In experimental realizations, when a leg…
The toughness of a polymer material can increase significantly if two networks are combined into one material. This toughening effect is a consequence of a transition from a brittle to a ductile failure response. Although this transition…
Instability patterns of rolling up a sleeve appear more intricate than the ones of walking over a rug on floor, both characterized as uniaxially compressed soft-film/stiff-substrate systems. This can be explained by curvature effects. To…
We introduce a simple geometric model for a double-stranded and double-helical polymer. We study the statistical mechanics of such polymers using both analytical techniques and simulation. Our model has a single energy-scale which…
We present results for a lattice model of bio-polymers where the type of $\beta$-sheet formation can be controlled by different types of hydrogen bonds depending on the relative orientation of close segments of the polymer. Tuning these…
Intriguing physical phenomena observed in natural materials have inspired the development of several engineering materials with dramatically improved performance. Marine sponge glass fibers, for instance, have attracted interest in recent…
This paper presents an experimental investigation on pattern formation and evolution in bilayered tubular organs using swelling deformation of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and aims at supplying a thorough comparison with theoretical and…
We study the mechanical and conformational properties of networks of helical polymers with a combination of Monte Carlo simulations based on the Wang-Landau algorithm and the Three-chain Model. We find that the stress-strain behavior of…