Related papers: Building the next pyramid
We report an experimental study of liquid drops moving against gravity, when placed on a vertically vibrating inclined plate, which is partially wetted by the drop. The frequency of vibrations ranges from 30 to 200 Hz, and, above a…
We study the outflow of soft particles through quasi-two-dimensional hoppers with both experiments and simulations. The experiments utilize spheres made with soft hydrogel, silicon rubber and glass. The hopper chamber has an adjustable exit…
Three-dimensional shell-like structures can be obtained spontaneously at the microscale from the self-folding of 2D templates of rigid panels. At least for simple structures, the motion of each panel is consistent with a Brownian process…
The ability to control forces between sub-micron-scale building blocks offers considerable potential for designing new materials through self-assembly. A typical paradigm is to first identify a particular (crystal) structure that has some…
Pods are mechanical devices constituted of two rigid bodies, the base and the platform, connected by a number of other rigid bodies, called legs, that are anchored via spherical joints. It is possible to prove that the maximal number of…
A solid-on-solid model is generalized to study the formation of Ge pyramid islands bounded by (105) facets on Si(100) substrates in two dimensions. Each atomic column is not only characterized by the local surface height but also by two…
Understanding fluid flow through porous media with complex geometries is essential for improving the design and operation of packed-bed reactors. Most existing studies focus on spherical packings, having as a consequence that accurate…
Criteria for the incipient motion of a rigid body initially resting on a rigid surface are formulated from first principles in this work. A modified Coulomb friction model and an associated distribution of reaction forces are proposed.…
Modeling arbitrarily large deformations of surfaces smoothly embedded in three-dimensional space is challenging. The difficulties come from two aspects: the existing geometry processing or forward simulation methods penalize the difference…
We investigate the conditions leading to large drag force fluctuations in granular materials. The study is based on a set of experimental drag tests, which involve pulling a plate vertically through a cohesionless granular material. In…
Remote epitaxy, where a 2D van der Waals material (usually graphene) is inserted on top of the substrate before film epitaxy, has emerged as a promising path for growing electronics with lower defect rates and less stringent lattice…
There are two alternative historical laws of rolling resistance formulated by French scientist Coulomb and Dupuit. It has been decided to verify experimentally again, which of these laws describes freely rolling ball bearings on a hard…
A two-dimensional earthquake model that consists of a single block resting upon a slowly moving rough surface and connected by two springs to rigid supports is studied. Depending on the elastic anisotropy and the friction force three…
This paper explores the design strategies for hybrid pole- or trunk-climbing robots, focusing on methods to inform design decisions and assess metrics such as adaptability and performance. A wheeled-grasping hybrid robot with modular,…
Mobile robots have received a great deal of research in recent years. A significant amount of research has been published in many aspects related to mobile robots. Most of the research is devoted to design and develop some control…
Designing a robot or structure that can fold itself into a target shape is a process that involves challenges originated from multiple sources. For example, the designer of rigid self-folding robots must consider foldability from geometric…
A ball supported by a spring is set on top of a plate which is sinusoidal vibrated. The motion is limited to one dimension motion. It is assumed that the spring is an ideal one with zero mass. The vibrating plate is considered much heavier…
Simulation results are presented on the collapse of granular columns composed of rod-like particles. Columns can be stable and free-standing if either the friction coefficient is large enough, or the rods long enough. Destabilizing…
Much current study of legged locomotion has rightly focused on foot traction forces, including on granular media. Future legged millirobots will need to go through terrain, such as brush or other vegetation, where the body contact forces…
The solid material of protoplanetary discs forms an asymmetric pattern around a low-mass planet (M_p<=10M_Earth) due to the combined effect of dust-gas interaction and the gravitational attraction of the planet. Recently, it has been shown…