Related papers: Liquid Crystal Elastomer Strips as Soft Crawlers
The aim of this work is to study the dynamics and stability of soft shape-morphing configurations and specifically the modes of interaction between the front and rear airfoil segments. Initially we present several steady-state solutions,…
Control of physical behaviors of nematic colloids and colloidal crystals has been demonstrated by tuning particle shape, topology, chirality and surface charging. However, the capability of altering physical behaviors of such soft matter…
Models of smectic-C liquid crystal elastomers predict that it can display soft elasticity, in which the shape of the elastomer changes at no energy cost. The amplitude of the soft mode and the accompanying shears are dependent on the…
Soft actuators have drawn significant attention from researchers with an inherently compliant design to address the safety issues in physical human-robot interactions. However, they are also vulnerable and pose new challenges in the design,…
We present a study of sliding friction for rigid triangular steel sliders on soft rubber substrates under both lubricated and dry conditions. For rubber surfaces lubricated with a thin film of silicone oil, the measured sliding friction at…
Sliding parts in nanosystems such as Nano ElectroMechanical Systems (NEMS) and nanomotors, increasingly involve large speeds, and rotations as well as translations of the moving surfaces; yet, the physics of high speed nanoscale friction is…
An elastic layer slides on a rigid flat governed by Coulomb's friction law. We demonstrate that if the coefficient of friction is high enough, the sliding localizes within stick-slip pulses, which transform into opening waves propagating at…
We study the friction of a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) rubber network sliding, at low velocity, on a substrate on which PDMS chains are end-tethered. We thus clearly evidence the contribution to friction of the pull-out mechanism of…
We investigate the switching dynamics of multistable nematic liquid crystal devices. In particular we identify a remarkably simple 2-dimensional (2D) device which exploits hybrid alignment at the surfaces to yield a bistable response. We…
Soft robots are well suited for contact-rich tasks due to their compliance, yet this property makes accurate and tractable modeling challenging. Planning motions with dynamically-feasible trajectories requires models that capture arbitrary…
We propose a new framework to discuss the transition from exponential relaxation in a liquid to the regime of slow dynamics. For the purposes of stress relaxation, we show that a liquid can be treated as an elastic medium. We discuss that,…
Constitutive equations are derived for the time-dependent behavior of particle-reinforced elastomers at isothermal loading with finite strains. A rubbery polymer is modelled as a network of macromolecules bridged by junctions which can slip…
Micro-organisms propel themselves in viscous environments by the periodic, nonreciprocal beating of slender appendages known as flagella. Active materials have been widely exploited to mimic this form of locomotion. However, the realization…
We present a computational study of sliding between gold clusters and a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite substrate, a material system that exhibits ultra-low friction due to structural lubricity. By means of molecular dynamics, it is…
Lubrication flows appear in many applications in engineering, biophysics, and in nature. Separation of surfaces and minimisation of friction and wear is achieved when the lubrication fluid builds up a lift force. In this paper we analyse…
For a large class of fluids exhibiting ultrasoft bounded pair potentials, particles form crystals consisting of clusters located in the lattice sites, with a density-independent lattice constant. Here we present an investigation on the…
The surface tension of partially wetting droplets deforms soft substrates. These deformations are usually localized to a narrow region near the contact line, forming a so-called `elastocapillary ridge.' When a droplet slides along a…
This paper reports on the frictional properties of smooth rubber substrates sliding against rigid surfaces covered with various densities of colloidal nano-particles (average diameter 77 nm). Friction experiments were carried out using a…
In this paper, we discuss the dynamic modeling of fluid-filled straw-like elements consisting of serially interconnected elastic frusta with both axisymmetric and antisymmetric degrees of freedom, assuming planar motion. Under appropriate…
The nonlinear elastic properties of nematic liquid crystals have acquired new interest with the recent experimental observation of bulk modulated nematic phases which are composed by achiral molecules. We extend the Oseen-Zocher-Frank's…