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Many physical systems can be modelled as parameter-dependent variational problems. In numerous cases, multiple equilibria co-exist, requiring the evaluation of their stability, and the monitoring of transitions between them. Generally, the…
We study the equilibrium shapes of vesicles, with an in-plane nematic order, using a Monte-Carlo scheme and show that highly curved shapes, like tubes and discs, with a striking similarity to the structures engendered by certain curvature…
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…
Mechanical stresses are increasingly found to be associated with various biological functionalities. At the same time, topological defects are being identified across a diverse range of biological systems and are points of localized…
This paper introduces a novel variable stiffness mechanism termed Helically Wound Structured Electrostatic Layer Jamming (HWS-ELJ) and systematically investigates its potential applications in variable stiffness robotic finger design. The…
Induced by proteins within the cell membrane or by differential growth, heating, or swelling, spontaneous curvatures can drastically affect the morphology of thin bodies and induce mechanical instabilities. Yet, the interaction of…
Living organisms have mastered the dynamic control of internal stresses to perform an array of functions, such as change shape and locomote. State-of-the-art attempts to replicate this ability in synthetic materials are rudimentary in…
We study the linear stability of elastic collapsible tubes conveying fluid, when the equilibrium configuration of the tube is helical. A particular case of such tubes, commonly encountered in applications, is represented by quarter- or…
Oscillations of flagella and cilia play an important role in biology, which motivates the idea of functional mimicry as part of bio-inspired applications. Nevertheless, it still remains challenging to drive their artificial counterparts to…
We describe a geometrical property of helical structures and show how it accounts for the early art of ropemaking. Helices have a maximum number of rotations that can be added to them -- and it is shown that this is a geometrical feature,…
The heterogeneous micromechanical properties of biological tissues have profound implications across diverse medical and engineering domains. However, identifying full-field heterogeneous elastic properties of soft materials using…
From the mitotic spindle up to tissues and biofilms, many biological systems behave as active droplets, which often break symmetry and change shape spontaneously. Here, I show that active nematic droplets can experience a fingering…
The interplay between activity and elasticity often found in active and living systems triggers a plethora of autonomous behaviors ranging from self-assembly and collective motion to actuation. Amongst these, spontaneous self-oscillations…
We use numerical simulations of a bead-spring model chain to investigate the evolution of the conformation of long and flexible elastic fibers in a steady shear flow. In particular, for rather open initial configurations, and by varying a…
Periodic structures can be engineered to exhibit unique properties observed at symmetry points, such as zero group velocity, Dirac cones and saddle points; identifying these, and the nature of the associated modes, from a direct reading of…
We review nine invariant and dispersion-type anisotropic hyperelastic constitutive models for soft biological tissues based on their fitting performance to experimental data from three different human tissues. For this, we used a hybrid…
Elastic strips provide a canonical system for studying the mechanisms governing elastic shape transitions. Buckling, linear snap-through, and nonlinear snap-through have been observed in boundary-actuated strips and linked to the type of…
Under a steady DC electric field of sufficient strength, a weakly conducting dielectric sphere in a dielectric solvent with higher conductivity can undergo spontaneous spinning (Quincke rotation) through a pitchfork bifurcation. We design…
Structures with artificial mechanical properties, often called mechanical metamaterials, exhibit divergent yet tunable performance. Various types of mechanical metamaterials have been proposed, which harness light or magnetic interactions,…
Physical experiments can characterize the elastic response of granular materials in terms of macroscopic state-variables, namely volume (packing) fraction and stress, while the microstructure is not accessible and thus neglected. Here, by…