Related papers: Elastowetting of Soft Hydrogel Spheres
In the classic theory of solid adhesion, surface energy drives deformation to increase contact area while bulk elasticity opposes it. Recently, solid surface stress has been shown also to play an important role in opposing deformation of…
Softer means stickier for solid adhesives, because material compliance facilitates close contact between non-conformal surfaces. Recent discoveries have revealed that soft materials can exhibit a rich array of new physics arising from…
Liquid droplets usually wet smooth and homogeneous substrates isotropically. Recent research works have revealed that droplets sit, slide and spread anisotropically on uniaxially stretched soft substrates, showing an enhanced wettability…
Electrowetting is a commonly used tool to manipulate sessile drops on hydrophobic surfaces. By applying an external voltage over a liquid and a dielectric-coated surface, one achieves a reduction of the macroscopic contact angles for…
Sessile hydrogel drops on rigid surfaces exhibit wetting/contact morphology intermediate between liquid drops and glass spheres. Using density functional theory, we reveal the contact forces acting between a hydrogel and a rigid glass…
Thermodynamics tells us to expect underwater contact between two hydrophobic surfaces to result in stronger adhesion compared to two hydrophilic surfaces. However, presence of water changes not only energetics, but also the dynamic process…
In this work, we perform experiments with spherical polyacrylamide (PAAm) hydrogel drops/spheres, spanning a broad range of shear moduli and impact velocities on hydrophilic (plasma-treated glass) and hydrophobic (silane-coated) substrates,…
After thrown onto a solid substrate, very soft spherical gels bounce repeatedly. Separate rheological measurements suggest that these balls can be treated as nearly elastic. The Hertz contact deformation expected in the static (elastic)…
Liquid drops on soft solids generate strong deformations below the contact line, resulting from a balance of capillary and elastic forces. The movement of these drops may cause strong, potentially singular dissipation in the soft solid.…
The motion of an object within a viscous fluid and in the vicinity of a soft surface induces a hydrodynamic stress field that deforms the latter, thus modifying the boundary conditions of the flow. This results in elastohydrodynamic (EHD)…
Anisotropically wetting substrates enable useful control of droplet behavior across a range of applications. Usually, these involve chemically or physically patterning the substrate surface, or applying gradients in properties like…
Swelling is a volumetric-growth process in which a porous material expands by spontaneous imbibition of additional pore fluid. Swelling is distinct from other growth processes in that it is inherently poromechanical: Local expansion of the…
The interfacial mechanics of soft elastic networks play a central role in biological and technological contexts. Yet, effects of solid capillarity have remained controversial, primarily due to the strain-dependent surface energy. Here we…
We present the results of an experimental investigation into buoyant rigid spheres rising through highly concentrated collections of hydrated hydrogel particles. The volume fraction of particles is such that the mechanical properties of the…
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…
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…
A hydrophilic liquid, such as water, forms hydrogen bonds with a hydrophilic substrate. The strength and locality of the hydrogen bonding interactions prohibit slip of the liquid over the substrate. The question then arises how the contact…
We investigate the deformation of elastic microcapsules adsorbed at liquid-liquid interfaces. An initially spherical elastic capsule at a liquid-liquid interface undergoes circumferential stretching due to the liquid-liquid surface tension…
Adhesive contact between a thin elastic sheet and a substrate in a liquid environment arises in a range of biological, physical and technological applications. By considering the dynamics of this process that naturally couples fluid flow,…
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…