Related papers: Strain-stiffening gels based on latent crosslinkin…
Stress-strain relations for random packings of entangling chains under triaxial compression can exhibit strain stiffening and sustain stresses several orders-of-magnitude beyond typical granular materials. X-ray tomography reveals the…
Gels made of telechelic polymers connected by reversible crosslinkers are a versatile design platform for biocompatible viscoelastic materials. Their linear response to a step strain displays a fast, near-exponential relaxation when using…
We report, for the first time, some experimental observations regarding a new type of long range interaction between rigid particles that prevails when they are suspended in an soft elastic gel. A denser particle submerges itself to a…
From pasta to biological tissues to contact lenses, gel and gel-like materials inherently soften as they swell with water. In dry, low-relative-humidity environments, these materials stiffen as they de-swell with water. Here, we use…
We use a combination of original light scattering techniques and particles with unique optical properties to investigate the behavior of suspensions of attractive colloids under gravitational stress, following over time the concentration…
We present theoretical and experimental studies of the elastic response of fibrous networks subjected to uniaxial strain. Uniaxial compression or extension is applied to extracellular networks of fibrin and collagen using a shear rheometer…
Surface stresses have recently emerged as a key player in the mechanics of highly compliant solids. The classic theories of contact mechanics describe adhesion with a compliant substrate as a competition between surface energies driving…
We study a model of an active gel of cross-linked semiflexible filaments with additional active linkers such as myosin II clusters. We show that the coupling of the elasticity of the semiflexible filaments to the mechanical properties of…
We have studied the elastic response of actin networks with both compliant and rigid crosslinks by modeling molecular motors as force dipoles. Our finite element simulations show that for compliant crosslinkers such as filamin A, the…
We investigate the cyclic mechanical behavior in uniaxial tension of three different commercial thermoplastic polyurethane elastomers (TPU) often considered as a sustainable replacement for common filled elastomers. All TPU have similar…
The patterns arising from the differential swelling of gels are investigated experimentally and theoretically as a model for the differential growth of living tissues. Two geometries are considered: a thin strip of soft gel clamped to a…
Filamentous bio-materials such as fibrin or collagen networks exhibit an enormous stiffening of their elastic moduli upon large deformations. This pronounced nonlinear behavior stems from a significant separation between the stiffnesses…
Surface stress and surface energy are two fundamental parameters that determine the surface properties of any materials. While it is commonly believed that the surface stress and surface energy of liquids are identical, the relationship…
We investigate the spatial correlations of microscopic stresses in soft particulate gels, using 2D and 3D numerical simulations. We use a recently developed theoretical framework predicting the analytical form of stress-stress correlations…
Recent experiments on crosslinked gels quenched from solvent-rich to solvent-poor conditions show solvent-rich domains embedded in a gel-rich matrix. These domains coarsen and then undergo kinetic arrest at micron scales for hours, before…
The resistance to fracture of reversible biopolymer hydrogels is an important control factor of the cutting/slicing and eating characteristics of food gels. It is also critical for their utilization in tissue engineering, for which…
Active gels made of cytoskeletal proteins are valuable materials with attractive non-equilibrium properties such as spatial self-organization and self-propulsion. At least four typical routes to spatial patterning have been reported to date…
Soft materials are ubiquitous in technological applications that require deformability, for instance, in flexible, water-repellent coatings. However, the wetting properties of pre-strained soft materials are only beginning to be explored.…
We study the micromechanics of collagen-I gel with the goal of bridging the gap between theory and experiment in the study of biopolymer networks. Three-dimensional images of fluorescently labeled collagen are obtained by confocal…
We report on a cellular pattern which spontaneously forms at the surface of a thin layer of a cohesive granular material submitted to in-plane stretching. We present a simple model in which the mechanism responsible of the instability is…