Related papers: Measuring cellular traction forces on non-planar s…

The elastic properties of the double-stranded DNA handles used in optical tweezers experiments on biomolecules are customarily modeled by an extensible worm-like chain model. Fitting such model to experimental data however is no trivial…

Both animal and plant tissue exhibit a nonlinear rheological phenomenon known as compression stiffening, or an increase in moduli with increasing uniaxial compressive strain. Does such a phenomenon exist in single cells, which are the…

To develop a minimal model for a cell moving in a crowded environment such as in tissue, we investigate the response of a liquid drop of active matter moving on a flat rigid substrate to forces applied at its boundaries. We consider two…

The contractile motion of the heart is strongly determined by the distribution of the fibers that constitute cardiac tissue. Strain analysis informed with the orientation of fibers allows to describe several pathologies that are typically…

Fiber-reinforcement is a universal feature of many biological tissues. It involves the interplay between fiber stiffness, fiber orientation, and the elastic properties of the matrix, influencing pattern formation and evolution in layered…

The magnitude of traction forces exerted by living animal cells on their environment is a monotonically increasing and approximately sigmoidal function of the stiffness of the external medium. This observation is rationalized using active…

To simulate a macroscopic system from a simulation cell, a direct summation of the elastic fields produced by periodic images can be used. If the cell contains a non-zero elastic dipole component, the sum is known to be conditionally…

Large deformations of soft elastic beads spinning at high angular velocity in a denser background fluid are investigated theoretically, numerically, and experimentally using millimeter-size polyacrylamide hydrogel particles introduced in a…

Plant morphology emerges from cellular growth and structure. The turgor-driven diffuse growth of a cell can be highly anisotropic: significant longitudinally and negligible radially. Such anisotropy is ensured by cellulose microfibrils…

We measure the dynamical mechanical properties of human red blood cells. Single cell response is measured with optical tweezers. We investigate both the stress relaxation following a fast deformation, and the effect of varying the strain…

Flagella and cilia are examples of actively oscillating, whiplike biological filaments that are crucial to processes as diverse as locomotion, mucus clearance, embryogenesis and cell motility. Elastic driven rod-like filaments subjected to…

Non-invasive assessment of the electrical activation pattern can significantly contribute to the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias, due to faster and safer diagnosis, improved surgical planning and easier follow-up. One…

Leaves and flowers frequently have a characteristic rippling pattern at their edges. Recent experiments found similar patterns in torn plastic. These patterns can be reproduced by imposing metrics upon thin sheets. The goal of this paper is…

The 2D flow of a foam confined in a Hele-Shaw cell through a contraction is investigated. Its rheological features are quantified using image analysis, with measurements of the elastic stress, rate of plasticity, and velocity. The behavior…

We develop a multipoint stress mixed finite element method for linear elasticity with weak stress symmetry on quadrilateral grids, which can be reduced to a symmetric and positive definite cell centered system. The method is developed on…

The mechanical properties within living cells play a critical role in the adaptive regulation of their biological functions upon environmental and internal stimuli. While these properties exhibit nonequilibrium dynamics due to the thermal…

Due to their good ratio of stiffness and strength to weight, foam materials find use in lightweight engineering. Though, in many applications like structural bending or tension, the scale separation between macroscopic structure and the…

Modelling of single cellulose fibres is usually performed by assuming homogenous properties, such as strength and Young s modulus, for the whole fibre. Additionally, the inhomogeneity in size and swelling behaviour along the fibre is often…

A study is made of how active membrane proteins can modify the long wavelength mechanics of fluid membranes. The activity of the proteins is modelled as disturbing the protein surroundings through non-local force distributions of which a…

Oscillatory shear tests are widely used in rheology to characterize the linear and non-linear mechanical response of complex fluids, including the yielding transition. There is an increasing urge to acquire detailed knowledge of the…