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A powerful technique is introduced for simulating mechanical and electromechanical properties of one-dimensional nanostructures under arbitrary combinations of bending, twisting, and stretching. The technique is based on a novel control of…
Plastic rearrangements play a crucial role in the characterization of soft-glassy materials, such as emulsions and foams. Based on numerical simulations of soft-glassy systems, we study the dynamics of plastic rearrangements at the…
Shell buckling is central in many biological structures and advanced functional materials, even if, traditionally, this elastic instability has been regarded as a catastrophic phenomenon to be avoided for engineering structures. Either way,…
The influence of the texture of a hydrophobic surface on the electro-osmotic slip of the second kind and the electrokinetic instability near charge-selective surfaces (permselective membranes, electrodes, or systems of micro- and…
Thermal fluctuations strongly modify the large length-scale elastic behavior of crosslinked membranes, giving rise to scale-dependent elastic moduli. While thermal effects in flat membranes are well understood, many natural and artificial…
Colloid or nanoparticle mobility under confinement is of central importance to a wide range of physical and biological processes. Here, we introduce a minimal model of particles in a hydrodynamic continuum to examine how particle shape and…
We introduce a new experimental approach to study the structural transitions of large numbers of nanoparticle-coated droplets as their volume is reduced. We use an emulsion system where the dispersed phase is slightly soluble in the…
Fluid phase equilibria involving nano-dispersed phases, where at least one of the coexisting phases is confined to a small volume, are investigated by molecular dynamics simulation. Complementing previous studies on nanoscopic droplets,…
Using numerical simulations, we characterized the behavior of an elastic membrane immersed in an active fluid. Our findings reveal a nontrivial folding and re-expansion of the membrane that is controlled by the interplay of its resistance…
Particles added to a fluid interface can be used as a surface stabilizer in the food, oil and cosmetic industries. As an alternative to rigid particles, it is promising to consider highly deformable particles that can adapt their…
The design of amorphous entangled systems, specifically from soft and active materials, has the potential to open exciting new classes of active, shape-shifting, and task-capable 'smart' materials. However, the global emergent mechanics…
Lamellar or smectic phases often have an intricate intralamellar structure that remains scarcely understood from a microscopic viewpoint. In this work, we use molecular dynamics simulations to study the effect of volume exclusion and…
We investigate how controlled foaming alters the mechanical dissipation of liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs). Using thermal expandable microspheres, we generate homogeneous foams with precisely tuned bubble volume fractions up to 13% and…
Amongst the various fascinating types of material behavior featured by magnetic gels and elastomers are magnetostrictive effects. That is, deformations in shape or changes in volume are induced from outside by external magnetic fields.…
Buckling at the micro and nanoscale generates distant bistable states which can be beneficial for sensing, shape-reconfiguration and mechanical computation applications. Although different approaches have been developed to access buckling…
The transport and deformation of confined droplets and flexible capsules are central to diverse phenomena and applications, from biological flows in microcapillaries to industrial processes in porous media. Inspired by experiments, we…
We study the influence of the shape of the plasma container on the dynamics of the Reversed Field Pinch (RFP). The geometries we consider are periodic cylinders with elliptical and circular-shaped cross-sections. Numerical simulations of…
Bubble nucleation in liquid confined in nanochannel is studied using molecular dynamics simulations and compared against nucleation in the liquid over smooth (i.e. without confinement). Nucleation is achieved by heating part of a surface to…
The evaporation of droplets occurs in a large variety of natural and technological processes such as medical diagnostics, agriculture, food industry, printing, and catalytic reactions. We study the different droplet morphologies adopted by…
Electrosprays are a powerful technique to generate charged micro/nanodroplets. In the last century, the technique received extensive study and successful applications, including a Nobel price in Chemistry. However, nowadays its use in…