Related papers: Surface Tension Effects on Surface Instabilities o…
Soft materials, such as liquids, polymers, foams, gels, colloids, granular materials, and most soft biological materials, play an important role in our daily lives. From a mechanical viewpoint, soft materials can easily achieve large…
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,…
Biological soft tissues exhibit elastic properties which can be dramatically different from rubber-type materials (elastomers). To gain a better understanding of the role of constitutive relationships in determining material responses under…
We investigate the effect on biomembrane mechanical properties due to the presence an external potential for a non-conductive non-compressible membrane surrounded by different electrolytes. By solving the Debye-Huckel and Laplace equations…
The response to a localized force provides a sensitive test for different models of stress transmission in granular solids. The elasto-plastic models traditionally used by engineers have been challenged by theoretical and experimental…
To produce sounds, we adjust the tension of our vocal folds to shape their properties and control the pitch. This efficient mechanism offers inspiration for designing reconfigurable materials and adaptable soft robots. However,…
Mechanical and elastic properties of materials are among the most fundamental quantities for many engineering and industrial applications. Here, we present a formulation that is efficient and accurate for calculating the elastic and bending…
When a body is exposed to external forces large local stresses may occur at the surface because of surface roughness. Surface stress concentration is important for many applications and in particular for fatigue due to pulsating external…
Elastomers are viscoelastic materials and their properties significantly depend on the loading rate. The actual stress experienced by these materials is the sum of equilibrium and dissipative (inelastic) terms. At very low loading rates we…
Surface tension at cavity walls can play havoc with the mechanical properties of perforated soft solids when the cavities are filled with a fluid. This study is an investigation of the macroscopic elastic properties of elastomers embedding…
Mechanical deformation of amorphous solids can be described as consisting of an elastic part in which the stress increases linearly with strain, up to a yield point at which the solid either fractures or starts deforming plastically. It is…
Exceptionally large strains can be produced in soft elastomers by the application of an electric field and the strains can be exploited for a variety of novel actuators, such as tunable lenses and tactile actuators. However, shape morphing…
Surface tension is a prominent factor for the deformation of solids at micro-/nano-scale. This paper investigates the effects of surface tension on the two-dimensional contact problems of an elastic layer bonded to the rigid substrate.…
The influence of the texture of a hydrophobic surface on the electro-osmotic slip of the second kind and the electrokinetic instability near charge-selective surfaces (permselective membranes, electrodes, or systems of micro- and…
The electrostatic pull-in instability (EPI), within the framework of the nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) has been shown as a robust and versatile method for characterizing mechanical properties of nanocantilevers. This paper aims to…
Hierarchical structures are very common in Nature, but only recently have they been systematically studied in materials physics, in order to understand the specific effects they can have on the mechanical properties of various systems.…
We evaluate the conditions for surface stability of a layered magnetoelastic half-space subjected to large deformations and a magnetic field. After reviewing the fundamental measures of deformation and summarizing the magnetostatic…
Electroactive soft elastomers require huge electric field for a meaningful actuation. We demonstrate that this can be dramatically reduced and giant deformations can be produced by application of suitably chosen heterogeneous actuators. The…
Statistical mechanics is an important tool for understanding polymer electroelasticity because the elasticity of polymers is primarily due to entropy. However, a common approach for the statistical mechanics of polymer chains, the Gaussian…
The formation of periodic wrinkles in soft layered materials due to mechanical instabilities is prevalent in nature and has been proposed for use in multiple applications. However, such phenomena have been explored predominantly in…