Related papers: Elastocapillary coiling of an elastic rod inside a…
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…
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…
Various materials are made of long thin fibers that are randomly oriented to form a complex network in which drops of wetting liquid tend to accumulate at the nodes. The capillary force exerted by the liquid can bend flexible fibers, which…
We investigate the mechanics of elastic fibres carrying liquid droplets. In such systems, buckling may localize inside the drop cavity if the fibre is thin enough. This so-called drop-on-coilable-fibre system exhibits a surprising…
The capillary-induced structural instability of an elastic circular tube partially filled by a liquid is studied by combining theoretical analysis and molecular dynamics simulations. The analysis shows that, associated with the instability,…
We report on the capillary-induced snapping of elastic beams. We show that a millimeter-sized water drop gently deposited on a thin buckled polymer strip may trigger an elastocapillary snap-through instability. We investigate experimentally…
Flexible rings and rectangle structures floating at the surface of water are prone to deflect under the action of surface pressure induced by the addition of surfactant molecules on the bath. While the frames of rectangles bend inward or…
A rigid object moving in a viscous fluid and in close proximity with an elastic wall experiences self-generated elastohydrodynamic interactions. This has been the subject of an intense research activity, with a recent and growing attention…
We study the interaction between capillary forces and deformation in the context of a deformable capillary adhesive: a clamped, tense membrane is adhered to a rigid substrate by the surface tension of a liquid droplet. We find that the…
A liquid drop sitting on an elastic rod may act as a winch, or windlass, and pull the rod inside itself and coil it. This windlass effect has been shown to be generated by surface tension forces and to work best for small systems. Here we…
We report on the elastocapillary deformation of flexible microfibers in contact with liquid droplets. A fiber is observed to bend more as the size of the contacting droplet is increased. At a critical droplet size, proportional to the…
The elastocapillary instability of a flexible plate plunged in a liquid bath is analysed theoretically. We show that the plate can bend due to two separate destabilizing mechanisms, when the liquid is partially wetting the solid. For…
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 a flexible filament is confined to a fluid interface, the balance between capillary attraction, bending resistance, and tension from an external source can lead to a self-buckling instability. We perform an analysis of this instability…
We study the interaction of a liquid drop with an elastic beam in the case where bending effects dominate. We use a variational approach to derive equilibrium equations for the system in the presence of gravity and in the presence or…
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…
Motivated by recent experimental observations of capillary-induced spooling of fibers inside droplets both in spider capture silk and in synthetic systems, we investigate the behavior of a fiber packed in a drop. Using a simplified 2D…
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…
A liquid surface touching a solid usually deforms in a near-wall meniscus region. In this work, we replace part of the free surface with a soft polymer and examine the shape of this elasto-capillary meniscus, result of the interplay between…
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…