Related papers: Nanoscale buckling deformation in layered copolyme…
We uncover how nonlinearities dramatically alter the buckling of elastic beams. First, we show experimentally that sufficiently wide ordinary elastic beams and specifically designed metabeams ---beams made from a mechanical metamaterial---…
Dislocations in soft condensed matter systems such as lamellar systems of polymers, liquid crystals and ternary mixtures of oil, water and surfactant (amphiphilic systems) are described in the framework of continuum elastic theory. These…
This work investigates the morphological stability of a soft body composed of two heavy elastic layers, attached to a rigid surface and subjected only to the bulk gravity force. Using theoretical and computational tools, we characterize the…
Architected materials achieve unique mechanical properties through precisely engineered microstructures that minimize material usage. However, a key challenge of low-density materials is balancing high stiffness with stable deformability up…
Ever since the discovery of graphene and subsequent explosion of interest in single atom thick materials, studying their mechanical properties has been an active area of research. New length scales often necessitate a rethinking of physical…
The stability of copolymer tethers is investigated theoretically. Self-assembly of diblockor triblock copolymers can lead to tubular polymersomes which are known experimentallyto undergo shape instability under thermal, chemical and tension…
Crystal plasticity is mediated through dislocations, which form knotted configurations in a complex energy landscape. Once they disentangle and move, they may also be impeded by permanent obstacles with finite energy barriers or frustrating…
The crazing behavior of polymer nanocomposites formed by blending polymer grafted nanoparticles with an entangled polymer melt is studied by molecular dynamics simulations. We focus on the three key differences in the crazing behavior of a…
In this review, we address the issue of the electrostatic complexation between charged-neutral diblock copolymers and oppositely charged nanocolloids. We show that nanocolloids such as surfactant micelles and iron oxide magnetic…
We demonstrate the engineering of a source of radiation from growing surface plasmons (charge density oscillations) in a composite nano-system. The considered hybrid nano-structure consists of a thick layer of a conducting substrate on…
In this work, we consider the stability of a spherical shell under combined loading from a uniform external pressure and a homogenous natural curvature. Non-mechanical stimuli, such as one that tends to modify the rest curvature of an…
A block of rubber eventually buckles under severe flexure, and several axial wrinkles appear on the inner curved face of the bent block. Experimental measurements reveal that the buckling occurs earlier ---at lower compressive strains---…
Entropic forces play a fundamental role in nanoscale phenomena, from colloidal self-assembly to biomolecular disaggregation. Here, we develop an exact analytical theory and find general scaling laws for the entropic separation of…
We report a surface instability observed during the extrusion of extremely soft elastic solids in confined geometries. Due to their unique rheological properties, these soft solids can migrate through narrow gaps by continuously everting…
Soft porous materials, such as biological tissues and soils, are exposed to periodic deformations in a variety of natural and industrial contexts. The detailed flow and mechanics of these deformations have not yet been systematically…
A rectangular thin elastic sheet is deformed by forcing a contact between two points at the middle of its length. A transition to buckling with stress focusing is reported for the sheets sufficiently narrow with a critical width…
Stretching an elastic material along one axis typically induces contraction along the transverse axes, a phenomenon known as the Poisson effect. From these strains, one can compute the specific volume, which generally either increases or,…
Due to their exceptional mechanical and chemical properties and their natural abundance, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are promising building blocks of sustainable polymer composites. However, the rapid gelation of CNC dispersions has…
Experiments reveal that structural transitions in thin sheets are mediated by the passage of transient and stable mobile localized elastic excitations. These ``crumples'' or ``d-cones'' nucleate, propagate, interact, annihilate, and escape.…
We simulate the collision of atomic clusters with a weakly attractive surface using molecular dynamics in a regime between soft-landing and fragmentation, where the cluster undergoes large deformation but remains intact. As a function of…