Related papers: Let's deflate that beach ball
Large deformations of soft elastic beads spinning at high angular velocity in a denser background fluid are investigated theoretically, numerically, and experimentally using millimeter-size polyacrylamide hydrogel particles introduced in a…
The sticking of a soft polystyrene colloidal particle to a planar glass plate was studied by a microrheological technique using an optical tweezer to trap the particle and a piezoelectric-stage to position the plate and to sinusoidally…
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…
The elastic coupling between plastic events is generally invoked to interpret plastic properties and failure of amorphous soft glassy materials. We report an experiment where the emergence of a self-organized plastic flow is observed well…
While determining the stability of an unconstrained elastic structure is a straightforward task, this is not the case for viscoelastic structures. Seemingly elastically stable conformations of viscoelastic structures may gradually creep…
Motivated by recent experiments, we consider theoretically the compression of droplets pinned at the bottom on a surface of finite area. We show that if the droplet is sufficiently compressed at the top by a surface, it will always develop…
Wrinkling is the phenomenon of out-of-plane deformation patterns in thin walled structures, as a result of a local compressive (internal) loads in combination with a large membrane stiffness and a small but non-zero bending stiffness.…
We investigate the gravitational fragmentation of expanding shells in the context of the linear thin--shell analysis. We make use of two very different numerical schemes; the FLASH Adaptive Mesh Refinement code and a version of the Benz…
We study two closely related, nonlinear models of a viscoplastic solid. These models capture essential features of plasticity over a wide range of strain rates and applied stresses. They exhibit inelastic strain relaxation and steady flow…
Nematic elastomers are programmable soft materials that display large, reversible and predictable deformation under an external stimulus such as a change in temperature or light. While much of the work in the field has focused on actuation…
Budding-cell packings jam before all buds are mechanically constrained. The post-jamming state is therefore set by both the pressure $P$ and the fraction $u$ of buds that remain unconstrained. We develop a mean-field theory for this regime.…
We uncover how nonlinearities dramatically alter the buckling of elastic beams. First, we show experimentally that sufficiently wide ordinary elastic beams and specifically designed metabeams ---beams made from a mechanical metamaterial---…
We explore the influence of particle softness and internal structure on both the bulk and interfacial rheological properties of colloidal suspensions. We probe bulk stresses by conventional rheology, by measuring the flow curves, shear…
We study the elasto-plastic behaviour of materials made of individual (discrete) objects, such as a liquid foam made of bubbles. The evolution of positions and mutual arrangements of individual objects is taken into account through…
(substantial changes to section 3.2, otherwise minor) We present an analysis of the hydrodynamic stability of a cold slab bounded by two accretion shocks. Previous numerical work has shown that when the Mach number of the shock is large the…
A dielectric elastomer whose edges are held fixed will buckle, given sufficient applied voltage, resulting in a nontrivial out-of-plane deformation. We study this situation numerically using a nonlinear elastic model which decouples two of…
Numerical simulations of thin sheets undergoing large deformations are computationally challenging. Depending on the scenario, they may spontaneously buckle, wrinkle, fold, or crumple. Nature's thin tissues often experience significant…
In recent years there has been a growing interest in the statistical properties of surfaces growing under deposition of material. Yet it is clear that a theory describing the evolution of a surface should at the same time describe the…
The dynamics of a flexible filament sedimenting in a viscous fluid are explored analytically and numerically. Compared to the well-studied case of sedimenting rigid rods, the introduction of filament compliance is shown to cause a…
We present an experimental study of the deformation inside a granular material that is progressively tilted. We investigate the deformation before the avalanche with a spatially resolved Diffusive Wave Spectroscopy setup. At the beginning…