Related papers: Elasticity of compressed microgel suspensions
We study the elastic properties of soft solids containing air bubbles. Contrary to standard porous materials, the softness of the matrix allows for a coupling of the matrix elasticity to surface tension forces brought in by the bubbles.…
We introduce a class of continuum mechanical models aimed at describing the behaviour of viscoelastic fluids by incorporating concepts originated in the theory of solid plasticity. Within this class, even a simple model with constant…
Ab initio density functional theory has been used to analyze flexural modes, elastic constants, and atomic corrugations on single and bi-layer graphene. Frequencies of flexural modes are sensitive to compressive stress; its variation under…
Elastic capsules, prepared from droplets or bubbles attached to a capillary (as in a pendant drop tensiometer), can be deflated by suction through the capillary. We study this deflation and show that a combined analysis of the shape and…
We measure the response of open-cell polyurethane foams filled with a dense suspension of fumed silica particles in polyethylene glycol at compression speeds spanning several orders of magnitude. The gradual compressive stress increase of…
Large deformations of soft elastic beads spinning at high angular velocity in a denser background fluid are investigated theoretically, numerically, and experimentally using millimeter-size polyacrylamide hydrogel particles introduced in a…
Starting from an atomistic approach we have derived a hierarchy of successively more simplified continuum elasticity descriptions for modeling the mechanical properties of suspended graphene sheets. The descriptions are validated by…
Rheological measurements of model colloidal gels reveal that large variations in the shear moduli as colloidal volume-fraction changes are not reflected by simple structural parameters such as the coordination number, which remains almost a…
We analyze fluctuations of particle displacements and stresses in a sheared athermal suspension of elastic capsules (red blood cells). Upon variation of the volume fraction from the dilute up to the highly concentrated regime, our numerical…
Ferrogels are smart soft materials, consisting of a polymeric network and embedded magnetic particles. Novel phenomena, such as the variation of the overall mechanical properties by external magnetic fields, emerge consequently. However,…
Microgels made of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) are the prototype of soft, thermoresponsive particles widely used to study fundamental problems in condensed matter physics. However, their internal structure is far from homogeneous, and…
The flow behavior of a viscoelastic organogel is investigated using ultrasonic velocimetry combined with rheometry. Our gel presents a decreasing flow curve, i.e., the measured stress decreases as a function of the applied shear rate.…
We study a multi-body finite element model of a packing of hydrogel particles using the Flory-Rehner constitutive law to model the deformation of the swollen polymer network. We show that while the dependence of the pressure, $\Pi$, on the…
In this note we present a scaling theory for the elasticity of olympic gels, i.e., gels where the elasticity is a consequence of topology only. It is shown that two deformation regimes exist. The first is the non affine deformation regime…
The 2D flow of a foam confined in a Hele-Shaw cell through a contraction is investigated. Its rheological features are quantified using image analysis, with measurements of the elastic stress, rate of plasticity, and velocity. The behavior…
As an extension to strain-gradient models of size-dependent plastic behaviour, this work proposes a model for a stress-gradient theory. The model is distinguished from earlier works on the topic by its being embedded in a thermodynamically…
Softer means stickier for solid adhesives, because material compliance facilitates close contact between non-conformal surfaces. Recent discoveries have revealed that soft materials can exhibit a rich array of new physics arising from…
Using discrete element simulations based on molecular dynamics, we investigate the mechanical behavior of sheared, dry, frictional granular media in the "dense" and "critical" regimes. We find that this behavior is partitioned between…
We investigate the shear elastic modulus of soft polymer foams loaded with hard spherical particles and we show that, for constant bubble size and gas volume fraction, strengthening is strongly dependent on the size of those inclusions.…
We review continuum elastic models for the transmission of both external forces and internal active cellular forces in biopolymer gels, and relate them to recent experiments. Rather than being exhaustive, we focus on continuum elastic…