Related papers: Compression-induced failure of electro-active poly…
Ionic electro-active polymers (E.A.P.) can be used as sensors or actuators. For this purpose, a thin film of polyelectrolyte is saturated with a solvent and sandwiched between two platinum electrodes. The solvent causes a complete…
We construct a homogeneous, nonlinear elastic constitutive law, that models aspects of the mechanical behavior of inhomogeneous fibrin networks. Fibers in such networks buckle when in compression. We model this as a loss of stiffness in…
Voltage-induced magnetic anisotropy has been quantitatively studied in polycrystalline Ni thin film deposited on flexible substrate using microstrip ferromagnetic resonance. This anisotropy is induced by a piezoelectric actuator on which…
A confined incompressible elastic film does not deform uniformly when subjected to adhesive interfacial stresses but with undulations which have a characteristic wavelength scaling linearly with the thickness of the film. In the classical…
The effect of AC electric fields on the elasticity of supported lipid bilayers has been investigated at the microscopic level using grazing incidence synchrotron x-ray scattering. A strong decrease in the membrane tension up to 1mN/m and a…
Cells exert traction forces on compliant substrates and can induce surface instabilities that appear as characteristic wrinkling patterns. Here, we develop a mechanical description of cell-induced wrinkling on soft substrates using a thin…
The recent discovery of electro-active polymers has shown great promises in the field of soft robotics, and was logically followed by experimental, numerical and theoretical developments. Most of these studies were concerned with systems…
We discuss the response of biopolymer filament bundles bound by transient cross linkers to compressive loading. These systems admit a mechanical instability at stresses typically below that of traditional Euler buckling. In this…
The apparently intractable shape of a fold in a compressed elastic film lying on a fluid substrate is found to have an exact solution. Such systems buckle at a nonzero wavevector set by the bending stiffness of the film and the weight of…
Thin elastic sheets supported on compliant media form wrinkles under lateral compression. Since the lateral pressure is coupled to the sheet's deformation, varying it periodically in time creates a parametric excitation. We study the…
We study the effect of film density on the uniaxial compression of thin elastic films at a liquid--fluid interface. Using a combination of experiments and theory, we show that dense films first wrinkle and then fold as the compression is…
Instabilities in thin elastic sheets, such as wrinkles, are of broad interest both from a fundamental viewpoint and also because of their potential for engineering applications. Nematic liquid crystal elastomers offer a new form of control…
Materials with J-shaped stress-strain behavior under uniaxial stretching, where strength increases as deformation progresses, have been developed through various materials designs. On the other hand, polymer materials that progressively…
I study numerically the problem of delamination of a thin film elastically attached to a rigid substrate. A nominally flat elastic thin film is modeled using a two-dimensional triangular mesh. Both compression and bending rigidities are…
We consider the gravity-driven flow of a perfect dielectric, viscous, thin liquid film, wetting a flat substrate inclined at a non-zero angle to the horizontal. The dynamics of the thin film is influenced by an electric field which is set…
We provide a clear energetic insight into the catastrophic nature of the so-called creasing and pull-in instabilities in soft electro-active elastomers. These phenomena are ubiquitous for thin electro-elastic plates and are a major obstacle…
The effect of annealing on the dynamical behavior of swelling for ultrathin polyacrylamide films deposited on silicon substrates have been studied using X-ray reflectivity technique. The spin coated polyacrylamide films of similar…
Recent experiments have demonstrated that the nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin is dramatically altered in the presence of a flexible cross-linker such as the abundant cytoskeletal protein filamin. The basic…
Active semiflexible filaments are crucial in various biophysical processes, yet insights into their single-filament behavior have predominantly relied on theory and simulations, owing to the scarcity of controllable synthetic systems. Here,…
Polymer glasses have numerous advantageous mechanical properties in comparison to other materials. One of the most useful is the high degree of toughness that can be achieved due to significant yield occurring in the material. Remarkably,…