Related papers: Microstructures and Mechanical Properties of Dense…
We study gelation in suspensions of model colloidal particles with short-ranged attractive and long-ranged repulsive interactions by means of three-dimensional fluorescence confocal microscopy. At low packing fractions, particles form…
Colloidal gels are formed through the aggregation of attractive particles, whose size ranges from 10~nm to a few micrometers, suspended in a liquid. Such gels are ubiquitous in everyday life applications, from food products to paints or…
Velocity and density structure factors are measured over a hydrodynamic range of scales in a horizontal quasi-2d fluidized granular experiment, with packing fractions $\phi\in[10%,40%]$. The fluidization is realized by vertically vibrating…
We present experimental measurements of dynamical heterogeneities in a dense system of microgel spheres, sheared at different rates and at different packing fractions in a microfluidic channel, and visualized with high speed digital video…
We report the statistical properties of spherical steel particles rolling on an inclined surface being driven by an oscillating wall. Strong dissipation occurs due to collisions between the particles and rolling and can be tuned by changing…
Elastic properties of the solid regions of neutron star crusts and white dwarfs play an important role in theories of stellar oscillations. Matter in compact stars is presumably polycrystalline and, since the elastic properties of single…
We present a numerical analysis of the effect of particle elongation on the quasistatic behavior of sheared granular media by means of the Contact Dynamics method. The particle shapes are rounded-cap rectangles characterized by their…
The presence of interparticle cohesion can drastically change the behavior of granular materials. For instance, powders are challenging to handle, and one can make a sandcastle using wet grains. In this study, we report experimental results…
The assembly of colloids in nematic liquid crystals via topological defects has been extensively studied for spherical particles, and investigations of other colloid shapes have revealed a wide array of new assembly behaviors. We show,…
In-line holographic video microscopy records a wealth of information about the microscopic structure and dynamics of colloidal materials. Powerful analytical techniques are available to retrieve that information when the colloidal particles…
Producing food-grade soft particles with controlled structure is of interest to elucidate the structure-properties relationship in soft-particles suspensions. The aim of this work is to evaluate the ability of two elaboration processes to…
In the vicinity of their glass transition, dense colloidal suspensions acquire elastic properties over experimental timescales. We investigate the possibility of a visco-elastic flow instability in curved geometry for such materials. To…
We introduce structural heterogeneity, a new topological characteristic for semi-ordered materials that captures their degree of organisation at a mesoscopic level and tracks their time-evolution, ultimately detecting the order-disorder…
Microgels are soft colloids that, in virtue of their polymeric nature, can react to external stimuli such as temperature or pH by changing their size. The resulting swelling/deswelling transition can be exploited in fundamental research as…
We study the rheological properties of colloidal microphases in two dimensions simulating a model of colloidal particles with competing interactions. Due to the competition between short-range attraction and long-range repulsion, as a…
The interface of a soft hydrogel is easily deformed when it is in contact with particles, droplets or cells. Here we compute the intricate shapes of hydrogel menisci due to the indentation of point particles. The analysis is based on a free…
Dense suspensions of soft colloidal particles display a broad range of physical and rheological properties which are still far from being fully understood. To elucidate the role of deformability on colloidal flow, we employ computer…
We study by means of molecular dynamics simulations of periodic shear cells, the influence of particle shape on the global mechanical behavior of dense granular media. Results at macro-mechanical level show that for large shear deformation…
Concentrated colloidal suspensions are a well-tested model system which has a glass transition. Colloids are suspensions of small solid particles in a liquid, and exhibit glassy behavior when the particle concentration is high; the…
For two decades now, the importance of microstructure in the mechanical behaviour of a large collection of grains has been a topic of intense research. Many approaches have been developed to study the microstructure in granular materials,…