Related papers: Entropic forces exerted on a rough wall by a graft…
The entropic force exerted by the Brownian fluctuations of a grafted semiflexible polymer upon a rigid smooth wall are calculated both analytically and by Monte Carlo simulations. Such forces are thought to play an important role for…
Computer simulations are used to characterize the entropic force of one or more polymers tethered to the tip of a hard conical object that interact with a nearby hard flat surface. Pruned-enriched-Rosenbluth-method (PERM) Monte Carlo…
Polymers in confined spaces lose conformational entropy. This induces a net repulsive entropic force on the walls of the confining space. A model for this phenomenon is a lattice walk between confining walls, and in this paper a model of an…
Particles embedded in a fluctuating interface experience forces and torques mediated by the deformations and by the thermal fluctuations of the medium. Considering a system of two cylinders bound to a fluid membrane we show that the…
Walls in discrete element method simulations of granular flows are sometimes modeled as a closely packed monolayer of fixed particles, resulting in a rough wall rather than a geometrically smooth wall. An implicit assumption is that the…
The mechanical response of elastic porous media confined within rigid geometries is central to a wide range of industrial, geological, and biomedical systems. However, current models for these problems typically overlook the role of wall…
We study analytically a model of a two dimensional, partially directed, flexible or semiflexible polymer, attached to an attractive wall which is perpendicular to the preferred direction. In addition, the polymer is stretched by an…
The elastic response is studied of a single flexible chain grafted on a rigid plane and an ensemble of non-interacting tethered chains. It is demonstrated that the entropic theory of rubber elasticity leads to conclusions that disagree with…
The properties of semiflexible polymers tethered by one end to an impenetrable wall and exposed to oscillatory shear flow are investigated by mesoscale simulations. A polymer, confined in two dimensions, is described by a linear bead-spring…
We study the friction between a flat solid surface where polymer chains have been end-grafted and a cross-linked elastomer at low sliding velocity. The contribution of isolated grafted chains' penetration in the sliding elastomer has been…
To study the compressional forces exerted by a bundle of living stiff filaments pressing on a surface, akin to the case of an actin bundle in filopodia structures, we have performed particulate Molecular Dynamics simulations of a grafted…
The properties of a bundle of grafted semi-flexible living filaments in ideal solution facing an obstacle wall, under supercritical conditions, are explored. For this purpose, we make use of the discrete wormlike chain model characterized…
By means of mesoscopic numerical simulations of a model soft-glassy material, we investigate the role of boundary roughness on the flow behaviour of the material, probing the bulk/wall and global/local rheologies. We show that the roughness…
We study the thermodynamic properties of a semiflexible polymer confined inside strips of widths L<=9 defined on a square lattice. The polymer is modeled as a self-avoiding walk and a short range interaction between the monomers and the…
Force fluctuations in granular materials are investigated. A continuum equation is derived starting from a discrete model proposed in the literature. The influence of boundary conditions is investigated. For periodic boundary conditions the…
We explore the impact of geometrical corrugations on the near-wall flow properties of a soft-material driven in a confined rough microchannel. By means of numerical simulations, we perform a quantitative analysis of the relation between the…
We consider an elastic composite material containing particulate inclusions in a soft elastic matrix that is bounded by a rigid wall, e.g., the substrate. If such a composite serves as a soft actuator, forces are imposed on or induced…
The pressure exerted on a wall by a gas at equilibrium does not depend on the shape of the confining potential defining the wall. In contrast, it has been shown recently [A.P. Solon et al., Nat. Phys. 11, 673 (2015)] that a gas of…
The fluctuation pressure that an infinitely extended fluid membrane exerts on two enclosing parallel hard walls is computed. Variational perturbation theory is used to extract the hard-wall limit from a perturbative expansion through six…
We analyze static properties of a strongly confined semiflexible polymer, i.e. either trapped in a closed space or compressed by external forces, in an athermal solvent. Like a flexible polymer case, we can resort to an analogy with the…