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Polygonal desiccation crack patterns are commonly observed in natural systems. Despite their quotidian nature, it is unclear whether similar crack patterns which span orders of magnitude in length scales share the same underlying physics.…
During directional solidification of the solvent in a colloidal suspension, the colloidal particles segregate from the growing solid, forming high-particle-density regions with structure on a hierarchy of length scales ranging from that of…
When a suspension dries, the suspending fluid evaporates, leaving behind a dry film composed of the suspended particles. During the final stages of drying, the height of the fluid film on the substrate drops below the particle size,…
Colloidal gels constitute an important class of materials found in many contexts and with a wide range of applications. Yet as matter far from equilibrium, gels exhibit a variety of time-dependent behaviours, which can be perplexing, such…
Several mechanisms cause a granular material to strengthen over time at low applied stress. The strength is determined from the maximum frictional force F_max experienced by a shearing plate in contact with wet or dry granular material…
A receding-front model for drying of porous material is proposed that explains their drying-rate curves based on the dynamics of the evaporation front. The falling-rate regime is attributed to the slowing down of the front's propagation…
We report experimental and computational observations of dynamic contact networks for colloidal suspensions undergoing shear thickening. The dense suspensions are comprised of sterically stabilized poly(methyl methacrylate) hard sphere…
A transition from solid-like to liquid-like behavior occurs when colloidal gels are subjected to a prolonged exposure to a steady shear. This phenomenon, which is characterized by a yielding point, is found to be strongly dependent on the…
Cohesive powders tend to form porous aggregates which can be compacted by applying an external pressure. This process is modelled using the Contact Dynamics method supplemented with a cohesion law and rolling friction. Starting with…
The rheology of dense amorphous materials under large shear strain is not fully understood, partly due to the difficulty of directly viewing the microscopic details of such materials. We use a colloidal suspension to simulate amorphous…
The physical mechanism of elasticity of liquid surfaces coated with colloidal particles is proposed. It is suggested that particles are separated by water clearings and the capillary interaction between them is negligible. The case is…
The kinetics of phase transition processes often governs the resulting material microstruc-ture. Using optical microscopy, we here investigate the formation and stabilization of a po-rous crystalline microstructure forming in low-salt…
We use a combination of original light scattering techniques and particles with unique optical properties to investigate the behavior of suspensions of attractive colloids under gravitational stress, following over time the concentration…
The generation of stress in a pore due to salt crystallization is generally analysed as a compressive stress generation mechanism using the concept of crystallization pressure. We report on a completely different stress generation…
Colloidal gels have unique mechanical and transport properties that stem from their bicontinous nature, in which a colloidal network is intertwined with a viscous solvent, and have found numerous applications in foods, cosmetics,…
One major goal in condensed matter physics is identifying the physical mechanisms that lead to arrested states of matter, especially gels and glasses. The complex nature and microscopic details of each particular system are relevant.…
Stochastic models for pore collapse in granular materials are developed. First, a general fluctuating stress-strain relation for a plastic flow rule is derived. The fluctuations account for non-associativity in plastic deformations…
While it is widely acknowledged that system-spanning particulate structures contribute to the observed yield stress and shear-thinning in attractive colloidal gels, a comprehensive understanding of the underlying microscopic mechanisms…
Colloid-polymer mixtures can undergo spinodal decomposition into colloid-rich and colloid-poor regions. Gelation results when interconnected colloid-rich regions solidify. We show that this occurs when these regions undergo a glass…
We investigate the fragmentation process of solid materials with crystalline and amorphous phases using the discrete element method. Damage initiates inside spherical samples above the contact zone in a region where the circumferential…