Related papers: How to reduce the crack density in drying colloida…
A hexagonal columnar crystal undergoes a shear-melting transition above a critical shear rate or stress. We combine the analysis of the shear-thinning regime below the melting with that of synchrotron X-ray scattering data under shear and…
We present a detailed numerical study of multi-component colloidal gels interacting sterically and obtained by arrested phase separation. Under deformation, we found that the interplay between the different intertwined networks is key.…
Conventional drying of colloidal materials and gels (including cement) can lead to detrimental effects due to the buildup of internal stresses as water evaporates from the nano/microscopic pores. However, the underlying nanoscopic…
Cracking and peeling of a layer of clay on desiccation has been simulated using a spring model. A vertical section through the layer with finite thickness is represented by a rectangular array of nodes connected by linear springs on a…
We present a molecular dynamics study of force patterns, tensile strength and crack formation in a cohesive granular model where the particles are subjected to swelling or shrinkage gradients. Non-uniform particle size change generates…
The history dependence of the glasses formed from flow-melted steady states by a sudden cessation of the shear rate $\dot\gamma$ is studied in colloidal suspensions, by molecular dynamics simulations, and mode-coupling theory. In an ideal…
Energy dissipation in sheared dry and wet granulates is considered in the presence of an externally applied confining pressure. Discrete element simulations reveal that for sufficiently small confining pressures, the energy dissipation is…
A study of crack patterns in laponite films of different thickness is presented. Two cracking regimes are observed. The earlier with a higher rate of desiccation and shrinking has predominantly four-fold vertices in the crack network, while…
We report surface hardening or crust formation, unlike caking, during drying when a confined porous medium was heated from above using IR radiation. These crusts have higher strength than their closest counterparts such as sandcastles and…
I study the influence of temperature and the crack-tip velocity of the bond breaking at the crack tip in rubber-like materials. The bond breaking is considered as a stress-aided thermally activated process and result in an effective crack…
In this work, we systematically investigate for the first time the nature of stress correlations in soft colloidal gel materials which support tensile and compressive forces as well as finite rolling torque, as a function of system…
Micro-droplets of soft matter solutions have different morphologies upon drying, and can finally become wrinkled, buckled or cavitated particles. We investigate the morphology evolution of a drying soft matter droplet in this work: at the…
Colloidal gels are elasto-plastic materials composed of an out-of-equilibrium, self-assembled network of micron-sized (solid) particles suspended in a fluid. Recent work has shown that far-field hydrodynamic interactions do not change gel…
Colloidal model systems allow for a flexible tuning of particle sizes, particle spacings and mutual interactions at constant temperature. Colloidal suspensions typically crystallize as soon as the interactions get sufficiently strong and…
The melting of ultrathin lubricant film by friction between atomically flat surfaces is studied. The additive noises of the elastic shear stress and strain, and the temperature are introduced for building a phase diagram with the domains of…
The pattern and profile of a dried colloidal deposit formed after evaporation of a sessile water droplet containing polystyrene particles on a non-uniformly heated glass are investigated experimentally. In particular, the effects of…
Hydrogels have had a profound impact in the fields of tissue engineering, drug delivery, and materials science as a whole. Due to the network architecture of these materials, imbibement with water often results in uniform swelling and…
We propose a model for the formation of drying cracks in a viscoplastic material. In this model, we observe that when an external force is applied to a viscoplastic material before drying, the material memorizes the effect of the force as a…
We use molecular dynamics computer simulations to investigate the relaxation dynamics of a simple model for a colloidal gel at a low volume fraction. We find that due to the presence of the open spanning network this dynamics shows at low…
The mechanical properties of crystalline materials can be substantially modified under confinement. Such modified macroscopic properties are usually governed by the altered microstructures and internal stress fields. Here, we use a parallel…