Related papers: Stiffening solids with liquid inclusions
Numerous soft materials jam into an amorphous solid at high packing fraction. This non-equilibrium phase transition is best understood in the context of a model system in which particles repel elastically when they overlap. Recently,…
In amorphous materials, plasticity is localized and occurs as shear transformations. It was recently shown by Wu et al. that these shear transformations can be predicted by applying topological defect concepts developed for liquid crystals…
Many materials of contemporary interest, such as gels, biological tissues and elastomers, are easily deformed but essentially incompressible. Traditional linear theory of elasticity implements incompressibility only to first order and thus…
Our understanding of the structural features of foams and emulsions has advanced significantly over the last 20 years. However, with a search for "super-stable" liquid dispersions, foam and emulsion science employs increasingly complex…
Yield stress fluids are widely used in industrial application to arrest dense solid particles, which can be studied by using a concentrated emulsion as a model fluid. We show in experiments that particle sedimentation in emulsions cannot be…
The viscoelastic properties of soft jammed solids, such as foams, emulsions, and soft colloids, have been the subject of experiments, with particular interest in the anomalous viscous loss. However, a microscopic theory to explain these…
We extend classical Flory-Rehner theory for the expansion and compression of porous materials such as cross-linked polymer networks. The theory includes volume exclusion, affinity with the solvent, and finite stretching of the polymer…
We consider a dilute system of small hard beads or hard fibers immersed in a very soft gel able to withstand large elastic deformations. Because of its low to very low shear modulus, this system is very sensitive to small forces. We…
In 1957 Eshelby showed that a homogeneous isotropic ellipsoidal inhomogeneity embedded in a homogeneous isotropic host would feel uniform strains and stresses when uniform strains or stresses are applied in the far-field. Of specific…
A wide range of disordered materials, from biological to geological assemblies, feature discrete elements undergoing large shape changes. How significant geometrical variations at the microscopic scale affect the response of the assembly,…
The impact of confinement on self-assembly of particles interacting with short-range attraction and long-range repulsion (SALR) potential is studied for thermodynamic states corresponding to local ordering of clusters or layers in the bulk.…
Soft biological tissues exhibit a remarkable resilience to large mechanical loads, a property which is associated with the strain stiffening capability of the biopolymer networks that structurally support the tissues. Yet, recent studies…
Cold compaction of ceramic powders is driven by plastic strain, during which the elastic stiffness of the material progressively increases from values typical of granular matter to those representative of a fully dense solid. This increase…
A basic paradigm underlying the Hookean mechanics of amorphous, isotropic solids is that small deformations are proportional to the magnitude of external forces. However, slender bodies may undergo large deformations even under minute…
Liquid marbles are non-stick droplets covered with micro-scaled particles. Liquid marbles demonstrate quasi-elastic properties when pressed. The interpretation of the phenomenon of elasticity of liquid marbles is proposed. The model…
Investigations of strain correlations at the glass transition reveal unexpected phenomena. The shear strain fluctuations show an Eshelby-strain pattern ($\,\sim \cos{(4\theta)}/r^2\,$), characteristic for elastic response, even in liquids…
The aggregation of protein-stabilised emulsions leads to the formation of emulsion gels. These soft solids are classically envisioned as droplet-filled matrices. Here however, it is assumed that protein-coated sub-micron droplets contribute…
We report on the elastocapillary deformation of flexible microfibers in contact with liquid droplets. A fiber is observed to bend more as the size of the contacting droplet is increased. At a critical droplet size, proportional to the…
Confinement can significantly alter fluid properties, offering potential for specific technological applications. However, achieving precise control over the structural complexity of confined fluids and soft matter remains challenging, as…
We present a simple example of toughening mechanism in the homogenization of composites with soft inclusions, produced by crack deflection at microscopic level. We show that the mechanism is connected to the irreversibility of the crack…