Related papers: Effective behavior of nematic elastomer membranes

We compare the structural and mechanical properties of static packings composed of frictionless convex (ellipses) and concave (rigid dimers) particles in two dimensions. We employ numerical simulations to generate static packings and…

Modeling liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) at the molecular level is crucial for the predictable design of energy-conversion and stimuli-responsive materials. Here, we develop a self-consistent field theory for LCEs which captures the…

We report on the modeling of the dynamics of confined lipid membranes. We derive a thin film model in the lubrication limit which describes an inextensible liquid membrane with bending rigidity confined between two adhesive walls. The…

Using discrete element simulations based on molecular dynamics, we investigate the mechanical behavior of sheared, dry, frictional granular media in the "dense" and "critical" regimes. We find that this behavior is partitioned between…

Liquid foams are archetypal athermal amorphous solids whose elasticity arises from the jamming of densely packed bubbles. We investigate the stress relaxation of non-ageing liquid foams following flow cessation, using fast X-ray…

We consider membranes adhered through specific receptor-ligand bonds. Thermal undulations of the membrane induce effective interactions between adhesion sites. We derive an upper bound to the free energy that is independent of interaction…

Phase-ordering dynamics in nematic liquid crystals has been the subject of much active investigation in recent years in theory, experiments and simulations. With a rapid quench from the isotropic to nematic phase a large number of…

first-principles numerical simulation model for crumpling of a stiff tethered membrane is introduced. In our model membranes, wrinkles, ridge formation, ridge collapse, as well as the initiation of stiffness divergence, are observed. The…

We derive, via simultaneous homogenization and dimension reduction, the Gamma-limit for thin elastic plates whose energy density oscillates on a scale that is either comparable to, or much smaller than, the film thickness. We consider the…

Freestanding silicon nitride membranes with thicknesses down to a few tens of nanometers find use as TEM windows or soft X-ray spectral purity filters. As the thickness of a membrane decreases, emissivity vanishes, which limits radiative…

We present Monte Carlo simulations of an ultra coarse-grained lipid bilayer with different number of lipids on both leaflets. In the simulations, we employ a new method for measuring the elastic parameters of the membrane, including the…

We study a class of homogeneous finite-dimensional Ising models which were recently shown to exhibit glassy properties. Monte Carlo simulations of a particular three-dimensional model in this class show that the glassy phase obtained under…

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…

Active materials are capable of converting free energy into directional motion, giving rise to striking dynamical phenomena. Developing a general understanding of their structure in relation to the underlying non-equilibrium physics would…

Elastomers are viscoelastic materials and their properties significantly depend on the loading rate. The actual stress experienced by these materials is the sum of equilibrium and dissipative (inelastic) terms. At very low loading rates we…

Liquid crystal elastomers represent a novel class of programmable shape-transforming materials whose shape change trajectory is encoded in the material's nematic director field. Using three-dimensional nonlinear finite element…

We investigate wrinkling of two-dimensional random and triangular semiflexible polymer networks under shear. Both types of semiflexible networks exhibit wrinkling above a small critical shear angle, which scales with an exponent of the…

We present a detailed analysis of the molecular packing of a strained liquid crystal elastomer composed of chiral mesogens in the smectic A phase. X-ray diffraction patterns of the elastomer collected over a range of orientations with…

In this paper, we deduce a macroscopic strain gradient theory for plasticity from a model of discrete dislocations. We restrict our analysis to the case of a cylindrical symmetry for the crystal in exam, so that the mathematical formulation…

We study the behavior of thin elastic sheets that are bent and strained under the influence of weak, smooth confinement. We show that the emerging shapes exhibit the coexistence of two types of domains that differ in their characteristic…