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Amongst the various fascinating types of material behavior featured by magnetic gels and elastomers are magnetostrictive effects. That is, deformations in shape or changes in volume are induced from outside by external magnetic fields.…
Soft elastic composite materials can serve as actuators when they transform changes in external fields into mechanical deformation. Here, we address the corresponding deformational behavior of magnetic gels and elastomers, consisting of…
Characterizing the softness of deformable materials having partial elastic and partial viscous behaviour via soft lubrication experiments has emerged as a versatile and robust methodology in recent times. However, a straightforward…
Investigations of the elastic behavior of bulk elastomers have traditionally proceeded on the basis of classical rubber elasticity, which regards chains as thermally fluctuating but disregards the thermal fluctuations of the cross-links.…
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…
A constitutive model is developed for the mechanical response of elastomers at finite strains. A polymer is treated as a network of linear chains linked by permanent (chemical crosslinks) and temporary (entanglements and van der Waals…
When stressed sufficiently, solid materials yield and deform plastically via reorganization of microscopic constituents. Indeed, it is possible to alter the micro-structure of materials by judicious application of stress, an empirical pro-…
The buckling of a soft elastic sample under growth or swelling has highlighted a new interest in materials science, morphogenesis, and biology or physiology. Indeed, the change of mass or volume is a common fact of any living species, and…
This paper presents a theory for the behaviour of isotropic-hardening/softening elastoplastic materials that do not have a preferred reference configuration. In spite of important differences, many ingredients of classical plasticity are…
Using discrete element simulations based on molecular dynamics, we investigate the mechanical behavior of sheared, dry, frictional granular media in the "dense" and "critical" regimes. We find that this behavior is partitioned between…
Elastomers filled with liquid inclusions -- as opposed to conventional solid fillers -- are a recent trend in the soft matter community because of their unique range of mechanical and physical properties. Such properties stem, in part, from…
Entangled polymers are deformed by a strong shear flow. The shape of the polymer, called the form factor, is measured by small angle neutron scattering. However, the real-space molecular structure is not directly available from the…
Finite plasticity theories are still a subject of controversy and lively discussions. Among the approaches to finite elastoplasticity two became especially popular. The first, implemented in the commercial finite element codes, is based on…
Inspired by active shape morphing in developing tissues and biomaterials, we investigate two generic mechanochemical models where the deformations of a thin elastic sheet are driven by, and in turn affect, the concentration gradients of a…
Magnetic elastomers are appealing materials from an application point of view: they combine the mechanical softness and deformability of polymeric substances with the addressability by external magnetic fields. In this way, mechanical…
Physical experiments can characterize the elastic response of granular materials in terms of macroscopic state-variables, namely volume (packing) fraction and stress, while the microstructure is not accessible and thus neglected. Here, by…
Soft colloids allow to explore high density states well beyond random close packing. An important open question is whether softness controls the dynamics under these dense conditions. While experimental works reported conflicting results,…
To go beyond the simple model for the fold as two flexible surfaces or faces linked by a crease that behaves as an elastic hinge, we carefully shape and anneal a crease within a polymer sheet and study its mechanical response. First, we…
Interactions between active individuals in animal collectives lead to emergent responses that remain elusive in synthetic soft matter. Here, shape-morphing polymers are used to create bio-inspired transient solids that self-assemble with…
We study the lubrication of fluid-immersed soft interfaces and show that elastic deformation couples tangential and normal forces and thus generates lift. We consider materials that deform easily, due to either geometry (e.g. a shell) or…