Related papers: Molecular spring: from spider silk to silkworm sil…
Mechanical cues from the extracellular microenvironment play a central role in regulating the structure, function and fate of living cells. Nevertheless, the precise nature of the mechanisms and processes underlying this crucial cellular…
Molecular dynamics simulations were used to quantify mechanically-induced structural evolution in nanocrystalline Al with an average grain size of 5 nm. A polycrystalline sample was cyclically strained at different temperatures, while a…
We explain the origins of yield stress, shear-thinning, and normal stress differences in rigid fiber suspensions. We investigate the interplay between the hydrodynamic, colloidal attractive and repulsive, and inter-fiber contact…
We modify and extend the recently developed statistical mechanical model for predicting the thermodynamic properties of chain molecules having noncovalent double-stranded conformations, as in RNA or ssDNA, and $\beta-$sheets in protein, by…
We present the first molecular dynamics study to probe the mechanisms of anomalous diffusion in cationic surfactant micelles in the presence of explicit salt and solvent-mediated interactions. Simulations show that when the counter ion…
Usually, the strain-induced softening behaviour observed in the differential modulus $K(T,\gamma)$ of hydrogels has been attributed to the breakage of internal structures of the network, such as the cross-links that bind together the…
This paper investigates the role of size in biological organisms. More specifically, how the energy demand, expressed by the metabolic rate, changes according to the mass of an organism. Empirical evidence suggests a power-law relation…
Soft biological tissues exhibit a remarkable resilience to large mechanical loads, a property which is associated with the strain stiffening capability of the biopolymer networks that structurally support the tissues. Yet, recent studies…
The theory of transition between $\alpha$-helix, $\beta$-sheet and random coil conformation of a protein is discussed through a simple model, that includes both short and long-range interactions. Besides the bonding parameter and helical…
We study the energy expenditure and structural correlations in semi-dilute to concentrated suspensions of squirmers using active fast Stokesian dynamics simulations. Specifically, we simulate apolar active suspensions of squirmers, or…
Understanding how stick-slip dynamics manifests in diverse physical conditions is a crucial topic in tribology. Although it has been extensively studied in simple frictional configurations, the characterization of stick-slip behavior in…
The brittle fragmentation of spheres is studied numerically by a 3D Discrete Element Model. Large scale computer simulations are performed with models that consist of agglomerates of many spherical particles, interconnected by beam-truss…
Here, we report the production of silk incorporating graphene and carbon nanotubes directly by spider spinning, after spraying spiders with the corresponding aqueous dispersions. We observe a significant increment of the mechanical…
We analyze the stretching elasticity of a wormlike chain with a tension discontinuity resulting from a Hookean spring connecting its backbone to a fixed point. The elasticity of isolated semiflexible filaments has been the subject in a…
The correlations in the motion of reptating polymers in their melt are investigated by means of kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of the three dimensional slithering snake version of the bond-fluctuation model. Surprisingly, the slithering…
Biological membranes are elastic media in which the presence of a transmembrane protein leads to local bilayer deformation. The energetics of deformation allow two membrane proteins in close proximity to influence each other's equilibrium…
In this letter, we investigate the geometrically tailorable elasticity in the twisting behavior of biomimetic scale-covered slender soft substrate. Motivated by our qualitative experiments showing a significant torsional rigidity increase,…
The buckling of elastic bodies is a common phenomenon in the mechanics of solids. Wrinkling of membranes can often be interpreted as buckling under constraints that prohibit large amplitude deformation. We present a combination of analytic…
Plastic deformation in microscale differs from the macroscopic plasticity in two respects: (i) the flow stress of small samples depends on their size (ii) the scatter of plasticity increases significantly. In this work we focus on the…
Recently, it has been found experimentally that hydrated nacre exhibits a nonlinear mechanical response. While mechanical nonlinearity has been shown to be important in other biological structures, such as spider webs, the implications of…