Related papers: Coupled effects of applied load and surface struct…

Amphiphiles are molecules which have both hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts. In water- and/or oil-like solvent, they self-assemble into extended sheet-like structures due to the hydrophobic effect. The free energy of an amphiphilic system…

Adhesive attachment systems consisting of multiple tapes or strands are commonly found in nature, for example in spider web anchorages or in mussel byssal threads, and their structure has been found to be ingeniously architected in order to…

What do the ocean surface and a swaying flag have in common? Both are deformable surfaces exhibiting chaotic motion when exposed to turbulent flows. Whether such motion is primarily driven by flow turbulence or by nonlinear dynamics…

We investigate interface failure of model materials representing architected thin films in contact with heterogeneous substrates. We find that, while systems with statistically isotropic distributions of impurities derive their fracture…

A partially-wetting liquid can deform the underlying elastic substrate upon which it rests. This situation requires the development of theoretical models to describe the wetting forces imparted by the drop onto the solid substrate,…

Numerous studies have proved the usefulness of surface patterning for the modification of tribological performances of sliding contacts. Here we investigate the effects of patterning on the tribological properties of a slider over a solid…

The present work investigates the normal and tangential peeling behaviour of a gecko spatula using a coupled adhesion-friction model. The objective is to explain the strong attachment and easy detachment behaviour of the spatulae as well as…

The competition of depletion attractions and longer-ranged repulsions between colloidal particles in colloid-polymer mixtures leads to the formation of heterogeneous gel-like structures. For instance, gel networks, i.e., states where the…

Topologically interlocked material systems are two-dimensional assemblies of unit elements from which no element can be removed from the assembly without disassembly of the entire system. Consequently, such tile assemblies are able to carry…

We consider the response of an adsorbed polymer that is pulled by an AFM within a simple geometric framework. We separately consider the cases of i) fixed polymer-surface contact point, ii) sticky case where the polymer is peeled off from…

The motion of flexible fibers through structured fluidic environments is ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications. Most often, their dynamics results from the complex interplay between internal elastic stresses, contact forces and…

This study investigates the coupled deformation and flow behavior of thin, hyper-elastic, porous membranes subjected to pressure loading. Using bulge test experiments, optical deformation measurements, and flow rate characterization, we…

A theory for wetting of structured solid surfaces is developed, based on the delta-comb periodic potential. It possesses two matching parameters: the effective line tension and the friction coefficient on the three-phase contact line at the…

The adsorption of a collagen fragment on both a hydrophobic, hydrogen-terminated and a hydrophilic, natively oxidised Si surface is investigated using all-atom molecular dynamics. While favourable direct protein-surface interactions via…

The effect of structure relaxation on the potential energy surface (PES) of interlayer interaction of twisted graphene bilayer is studied for a set of commensurate moir\'e systems using the registry-dependent empirical potential of…

The organization of water molecules and ions between charged mineral surfaces determines the stability of colloidal suspensions and the strength of phase-separated particulate gels. In this article we assemble a density functional that…

Using a minimal model of cells or cohesive cell layers as continuum active elastic media, we examine the effect of substrate thickness and stiffness on traction forces exerted by strongly adhering cells. We obtain a simple expression for…

We study the time dependency of the (average) interfacial separation between an elastic solid with a flat surface and a rigid solid with a randomly rough surface, squeezed together in a fluid. We use an analytical theory describing the…

The instability, dynamics and morphological transitions of patterns in thin liquid films on periodic striped surfaces (consisting of alternating less and more wettable stripes) are investigated based on 3-D nonlinear simulations that…

Flexible structures in an incoming perpendicular flow typically undergo elastic reconfiguration that reduces drag; however, at higher velocities, they are prone to dynamical instabilities that entail complex wake dynamics and fluctuating…