Related papers: Elastowetting of Soft Hydrogel Spheres
We study fluid flow at the interfaces between elastic solids with randomly rough, self-affine surfaces. We show by numerical simulation that elastic deformation lowers the relative contact area at which contact patches percolate in…
It is demonstrated that polymers sticking out of the surface of a neutral hydrogel are capable of preventing adhesive forces from pulling a hydrogel into close contact with a surface against which it is pressed. The proposed mechanism for…
Metallic seals are crucial machine elements in many important applications, e.g., in ultrahigh vacuum systems. Due to the high elastic modulus of metals, and the surface roughness which exists on all solid surfaces, if no plastic…
Elastomers swollen with non-polar fluids show potential as anti-adhesive materials. We study the effect of oil fraction and contact time on the adhesion between swollen spherical probes of PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) and flat glass…
In this paper we use a deterministic multi-asperity model to investigate the elastic contact of rough spheres. Synthetic rough surfaces with controllable spectra were used to identify individual asperities, their locations and curvatures.…
The characterization of the wetting on superhydrophobic surfaces is rather complex. Usual contact angle experiments are difficult to perform and the lateral movement of droplets as well as the pinning at point defects on the surface can…
We describe electrophoresis of spherical dielectric particles in a uniformly aligned nematic medium with a negative dielectric anisotropy. A spherical particle that orients the liquid crystal (LC) perpendicularly to its surface moves under…
A recent study has demonstrated that phase separation in binary liquid mixtures is arrested in the presence of elastic networks and can lead to a nearly uniformly-sized distribution of the dilute-phase droplets. At longer timescales, these…
Soft solids and their surface deformations control the response of many natural and artificial systems. Yet, their underlying properties are vigorously debated, particularly for polymer networks. While molecular-scale theories predict no…
Wall-bounded sedimentation of spherical particles at low particle Reynolds numbers $Re_\text{P}\lessapprox 0.1$ under the influence of elastic deformation was investigated experimentally. The complete kinematics of both elastic and rigid…
The contact line of a liquid drop on a solid exerts a nanometrically sharp surface traction. This provides an unprecedented tool to study highly localised and dynamic surface deformations of soft polymer networks. One of the outstanding…
Extremely compliant elastic materials, such as thin membranes or soft gels, can be deformed when wetted by a liquid drop. It is commonly assumed that the solid capillarity in "soft wetting" can be treated in the same manner as liquid…
Cells and other soft particles are often forced to flow in confined geometries in both laboratory and natural environments, where the elastic deformation induces an additional drag and pressure drop across the particle. In contrast with…
Molecular dynamics simulations were employed to study the wetting behavior of nanoscale aqueous hydrophilic and hydrophobic Imidazolium based ionic liquid (IL) droplets on a solid graphite substrate subjected to the perpendicular electric…
We explore how thermal fluctuations affect the mechanics of thin amorphous spherical shells. In flat membranes with a shear modulus, thermal fluctuations increase the bending rigidity and reduce the in-plane elastic moduli in a…
We conducted experiments to directionally freeze agar hydrogel drops with different polymer concentrations, on a copper substrate maintained at low temperature. Unlike the water droplet studied in the literature, where the liquid part can…
We investigate the rapid spreading dynamics of a viscoelastic drop on a solid. Upon contact, surface tension drives a fast motion of the contact line along the substrate. Here, we resolve this motion for viscoelastic liquids by experiments…
Lubricated contacts in soft materials are important in various engineering systems and natural settings. Three major lubrication regimes are boundary (BL), mixed (ML), and elasto-hydrodynamic (EHL) lubrication, where the contact region is…
Electrowetting on textured and lubricant infused surfaces is conventionally expected to promote enhanced droplet spreading by reducing apparent contact angles. Contrary to this intuition, we report rapid tangential droplet ejection at…
Accurate estimation of surface wettability for various degrees of hydrophobicity becomes increasingly important in the molecular design of membrane. In this paper, we develop simple yet physically realistic model for estimating contact…