Related papers: Solid Capillarity: When and How does Surface Tensi…

It is widely appreciated that surface tension can dominate the behavior of liquids at small scales. Solids also have surface stresses of a similar magnitude, but they are usually overlooked. However, recent work has shown that these can…

The elastic deformation of a soft solid induced by capillary forces crucially relies on the excess stress inside the solid-liquid interface. While for a liquid-liquid interface this "surface stress" is strictly identical to the "surface…

Extremely compliant elastic materials, such as thin membranes or soft gels, can be deformed when wetted by a liquid drop. It is commonly assumed that the solid capillarity in "soft wetting" can be treated in the same manner as liquid…

Surface stresses have recently emerged as a key player in the mechanics of highly compliant solids. The classic theories of contact mechanics describe adhesion with a compliant substrate as a competition between surface energies driving…

A droplet can deform a soft substrate due to capillary forces when they are in contact. We study the static deformation of a soft solid layer coated on a rigid cylindrical fiber when an axisymmetric barrel-shaped droplet is embracing it. We…

When a suspension dries, the suspending fluid evaporates, leaving behind a dry film composed of the suspended particles. During the final stages of drying, the height of the fluid film on the substrate drops below the particle size,…

A sessile liquid drop can deform the substrate on which it rests if the solid is sufficiently "soft". In this paper we compute the detailed spatial structure of the capillary forces exerted by the drop on the solid substrate using a model…

The surface free energy, or surface tension, of a liquid interface gives rise to a pressure jump when the interface is curved. Here we show that a similar capillary pressure arises at the interface of soft solids. We present experimental…

Springs can be found in many applications and biological systems, and when these are soft, they easily deform. At small scales, capillarity can induce a force leading to spring deformations when the elastocapillary number is small. We…

When stretched in one direction, most solids shrink in the transverse directions. In soft silicone gels, however, we observe that small-scale topographical features grow upon stretching. A quantitative analysis of the topography shows that…

Recent experiments have shown that surface stresses in soft materials can have a significant strain-dependence. Here we explore the implications of this surface elasticity to show how, and when, we expect it to arise. We develop the…

We address the question of whether solids may be distinguished from fluids by their response to shear stress

Soft amorphous materials are viscoelastic solids ubiquitously found around us, from clays and cementitious pastes to emulsions and physical gels encountered in food or biomedical engineering. Under an external deformation, these materials…

Surface stress, which is always neglected in classical elastic theories, has recently emerged as a key role in the mechanics of highly deformable soft solids. In this paper, the effect of surface stress on the deformation and instability of…

Surface tension tends to minimize the area of interfaces between pieces of matter in different thermodynamic phases, be they in the solid or the liquid state. This can be relevant for the macroscopic shape of very soft solids, and lead to a…

Floating of bodies heavier than the supporting liquid is discussed. Floating of cylindrical, ellipsoidal bodies and rectangular plates possessing lateral dimensions smaller than the capillary length is treated. It is demonstrated that more…

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,…

Extreme deformation of soft matter is central to our understanding of the effects of shock, fracture, and phase change in a variety of systems. Yet, despite, the increasing interest in this area, far-from-equilibrium behaviours of soft…

The ability of soft matter such as drops and bubbles to change shape dynamically during interaction can give rise to counter-intuitive behaviour that may be expected of rigid materials. Here we show that dimple formation on approach and the…

The capillary forces exerted by liquid drops and bubbles on a soft solid are directly measured using molecular dynamics simulations. The force on the solid by the liquid near the contact line is not oriented along the liquid vapor interface…