Related papers: Elasto-capillary adhesion: The effect of deformabi…
The interaction of a thin viscous film with an elastic sheet results in coupling of pressure and deformation, which can be utilized as an actuation mechanism for surface deformations in a wide range of applications, including microfluidics,…
Drying of colloidal droplets on solid, rigid substrates is associated with a capillary pressure developing within the droplet. In due course of time, the capillary pressure builds up due to droplet evaporation resulting in the formation of…
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…
Using three-dimensional Discrete Element Method (DEM) simulations, we investigate the erosion dynamics of a cohesive bed composed of wet spherical particles subjected to the shear flow of an overlying non-cohesive granular layer. Cohesion…
Dry adhesives rely on short-ranged intermolecular bonds, hence requiring a low elastic modulus to conform to the surface roughness of the adhered material. Under external loads, however, soft adhesives accumulate strain energy, which…
Adhesion plays an integral role in diverse biological functions ranging from cellular transport to tissue development. Estimation of adhesion strength, therefore, becomes important to gain biophysical insight into these phenomena. In this…
Two collective properties distinguishing the thin liquid water vapour interface from the bulk liquid are the anisotropy of the pressure tensor giving rise to surface tension and the orientational alignment of the molecules leading to a…
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…
Using numerical simulations, we characterized the behavior of an elastic membrane immersed in an active fluid. Our findings reveal a nontrivial folding and re-expansion of the membrane that is controlled by the interplay of its resistance…
The removal of liquid droplets from solid surfaces is central to cleaning, coatings and oil recovery. Here we investigate liquid droplets capillary lifted by an immiscible working liquid. The rising working liquid triggers the formation of…
When adhesive elastomeric materials slide over hard rough surfaces at low velocities, there are two primary dissipative mechanisms that control how friction changes with sliding velocity: viscoelastic dissipation and adhesive dissipation.…
We examine the response of a dense colloidal suspension to a local force applied by a small magnetic bead. For small forces, we find a linear relationship between the force and the displacement, suggesting the medium is elastic, even though…
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…
When droplets impact fibrous media, the liquid can be captured by the fibers or contact then break away. Previous studies have shown that the efficiency of drop capture by a rigid fiber depends on the impact velocity and defined a threshold…
For partially wetting, ellipsoidal colloids trapped at a fluid interface, their effective, interface--mediated interactions of capillary and fluctuation--induced type are analyzed. For contact angles different from 90$^o$, static interface…
We study the elastic properties of soft solids containing air bubbles. Contrary to standard porous materials, the softness of the matrix allows for a coupling of the matrix elasticity to surface tension forces brought in by the bubbles.…
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…
The sliding friction force exerted by stochastic linkers interacting with a moving filament is calculated. The elastic properties of the substrate on which the linkers are anchored are shown to strongly influence the friction force. In some…
Soft adhesive contacts are ubiquitous in nature and are increasingly used in synthetic systems, such as flexible electronics and soft robots, due to their advantages over traditional joining techniques. While methods to study the failure of…
We present a fluid dynamics video showing the adhesion of a drop to a superhydrophobic surface. We use environmental scanning electron microscopy to observe depinning events at the microscale. As the drop moves along the surface, the…