Related papers: Actuation of thin nematic elastomer sheets with co…
Liquid crystal elastomers are special cross-linked polymer materials combining the large elastic deformability of elastomers with the orientational orders of liquid crystals. This model exhibits markedly different phenomena than the liquid…
The macroscopic shape of liquid crystalline elastomers strongly depends on the order parameter of the mesogenic groups. This order can be manipulated if photoisomerisable groups, e.g. containing N=N bonds, are introduced into the material.…
Very thin elastic sheets, even at zero temperature, exhibit nonlinear elastic response by virtue of their dominant bending modes. Their behavior is even richer at finite temperature. Here we use molecular dynamics (MD) to study the…
A body immersed in a nematic liquid crystal disturbs the fluid's preferred molecular configuration and increases its stored elastic energy. In an active nematic, the fluid components also generate a stress in the bulk fluid. By introducing…
The fluid dynamics of the classical dewetting instability in ultrathin films is a non-linear process. However, the physical manifestation of the instability in terms of characteristic length and time scales can be described by a linearized…
In this paper we show the emergence of polycrystalline structures as a result of elastic energy minimisation. For this purpose, we introduce a variational model for two-dimensional systems of edge dislocations, within the so-called core…
We formulate a large-strain model of single-slip crystal elastoplasticity in the framework of energetic solutions. Numerical performance of the model is compared with lab experiments on the compression of a stack of note papers.
We examine the structural relaxation of glassy materials at finite temperatures, considering the effect of activated rearrangements and long-range elastic interactions. Our three-dimensional mesoscopic relaxation model shows how the…
Self-assembly of colloidal particles due to elastic interactions in nematic liquid crystals promises tunable composite materials and can be guided by exploiting surface functionalization, geometric shape and topology, though these means of…
We propose a model of a heterogeneous glass forming liquid and compute the low-temperature behavior of a tagged molecule moving within it. This model exhibits stretched-exponential decay of the wavenumber-dependent, self intermediate…
We investigate equilibria of charged deformable materials via the minimization of an electroelastic energy. This features the coupling of elastic response and electrostatics by means of a capacitary term, which is naturally defined in…
We consider three-dimensional reshaping of a thin nematoelastic film upon nematic-isotropic transition in the field of a charge one topological defect, leading to either cone or anticone (d-cone) shells. The analysis is based on the…
This investigation extends earlier studies of a shear-transformation-zone (STZ) theory of plastic deformation in amorphous solids. My main purpose here is to explore the possibility that the configurational degrees of freedom of such…
An inhomogeneous electric field is used to study the deflection of a supersonic beam of water molecules. The deflection profiles show strong broadening accompanied by a small net displacement towards higher electric fields. The profiles are…
Soft matter systems are common in nature and make up nearly all the essential components necessary for life, from cells to the organelles within those cells. The ability of these soft materials to deform is crucial for the proper…
We examine the shape of droplets atop deformable thin elastomeric films prepared with an anisotropic tension. As the droplets generate a deformation in the taut film through capillary forces, they assume a shape that is elongated along the…
Atomically thin sheets, such as graphene, are widely used in nanotechnology. Recently they have also been used in applications including kirigami and self-folding origami, where it becomes important to understand how they respond to…
We propose that ballooning can be controlled, enriched and amplified by using rubbery networks of aligned molecular rods known as liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs). Firstly, LCEs are promising artificial muscles, showing large spontaneous…
The starting point for this work is a static macroscopic model for a high-contrast layered material in single-slip finite crystal plasticity, identified in [Christowiak & Kreisbeck, Calc. Var. PDE (2017)] as a homogenization limit via…
The size and shape of a large variety of polymeric particles, including biological cells, star polymers, dendrimes, and microgels, depend on the applied stresses as the particles are extremely soft. In high-density suspensions these…