Related papers: A Model for Compression-Weakening Materials and th…

We present theoretical and experimental studies of the elastic response of fibrous networks subjected to uniaxial strain. Uniaxial compression or extension is applied to extracellular networks of fibrin and collagen using a shear rheometer…

Inspired by active shape morphing in developing tissues and biomaterials, we investigate two generic mechanochemical models where the deformations of a thin elastic sheet are driven by, and in turn affect, the concentration gradients of a…

Epithelial cell layers on soft elastic substrates or pillar arrays are commonly used as model systems for investigating the role of force in tissue growth, maintenance and repair. Here we show analytically that the experimentally observed…

Fibrous networks are ideal functional materials since they provide mechanical rigidity at low weight. Such structures are omnipresent in natural biomaterials from cells to tissues, as well as in man-made materials from polymeric composites…

In the present work, a machine learning based constitutive model for electro-mechanically coupled material behavior at finite deformations is proposed. Using different sets of invariants as inputs, an internal energy density is formulated…

We report on a cellular pattern which spontaneously forms at the surface of a thin layer of a cohesive granular material submitted to in-plane stretching. We present a simple model in which the mechanism responsible of the instability is…

Many biological tissues, such as bones and ligaments, are fibrous. The geometrical structure of these tissues shows that they exhibit a similar hierarchy in their ultra-structure and macro-structure. The aim of this work is to develop a…

Contractile forces exerted on the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM) lead to the alignment and stretching of constituent fibers within the vicinity of cells. As a consequence, the matrix reorganizes to form thick bundles of aligned…

We study dense, disordered stacks of elastic macroscopic fibers. These stacks often exhibit non-linear elasticity, due to the coupling between the applied stress and the internal distribution of fiber contacts. We propose a theoretical…

Constitutive models that describe the mechanical behavior of soft tissues have advanced greatly over the past few decades. These expert models are generalizable and require the calibration of a number of parameters to fit experimental data.…

In this paper homogenization of a mathematical model for plant tissue biomechanics is presented. The microscopic model constitutes a strongly coupled system of reaction-diffusion-convection equations for chemical processes in plant cells,…

A recent theory for stress transmission in isostatic granular and cellular systems predicts a constitutive equation that couples the stress field to the local microstructure. The theory could not be applied to macroscopic systems because…

A constitutive relation between stress and strain relative to a reference state is the basic assumption of elasticity theory. However, in living matter, force generation is governed by motor molecule activity, which does not depend on…

Mechanical cues like the rigidity of the substrate are main determinants for the decision making of adherent cells. Here we use a mechano-chemical model to predict the cellular response to varying substrate stiffness. The model equations…

Adhering cells actively probe the mechanical properties of their environment and use the resulting information to position and orient themselves. We show that a large body of experimental observations can be consistently explained from one…

The consolidation of suspended particulate matter under external forces such as pressure or gravity is of widespread interest. In this work, we derive a constitutive relation to describe the deformation of a {\it two-dimensional} strongly…

We carry out the homogenization of a fluid-structure interaction problem consisting in the periodic inclusions of a viscous fluid in an elastic body. We get a macrostructure model where the body behaves as a viscoelastic material with a…

We consider a cellular monolayer, described using a vertex-based model, for which cells form a spatially disordered array of convex polygons that tile the plane. Equilibrium cell configurations are assumed to minimize a global energy…

We examine the buckling shape and critical compression of confined inhomogeneous composite sheets lying on a liquid foundation. The buckling modes are controlled by the bending stiffness of the sheet, the density of the substrate, and the…

The mechanics of animal cells is strongly determined by stress fibers, which are contractile filament bundles that form dynamically in response to extracellular cues. Stress fibers allow the cell to adapt its mechanics to environmental…