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The toughness of a polymer material can increase significantly if two networks are combined into one material. This toughening effect is a consequence of a transition from a brittle to a ductile failure response. Although this transition…
Growth-induced pattern formations in curved film-substrate structures have attracted extensive attentions recently. In most existing literature, the growth tensor is assumed to be homogeneous or piecewise homogeneous. In this paper, we aim…
Soft materials possessing tunable rheological properties are desirable in applications ranging from 3D printing to biological scaffolds. Here, we use a telechelic, triblock copolymer polystyrene-b-poly(ethylene oxide)-b-polystyrene (SEOS)…
Experimental and theoretical observations have agreed that the onset of cavitation in soft materials requires higher tensile pressure than pure water. The extra tensile pressure is required since the cavitating bubble needs to overcome the…
We investigate the finite bending and the associated bending instability of an incompressible dielectric slab subject to a combination of applied voltage and axial compression, using nonlinear electro-elasticity theory and its incremental…
Many organisms have an elastic skeleton that consists of a closed shell of epithelial cells that is filled with fluid, and can actively regulate both elastic forces in the shell and hydrostatic pressure inside it. In this work we introduce…
This paper proposes a new metamaterial structure consisting of a periodically porous elastomer with pore coatings. This design enables us to engender finite deformation by a contactless load. As a case study, we apply thermal load to the…
Wrinkles are often observed on the surfaces of compressed soft materials in nature. In the past few decades, the fascinating surface patterns have been studied extensively by using the linear bifurcation analysis under plane strain. The…
The modelling of heterogeneous and architected materials poses a significant challenge, demanding advanced homogenisation techniques. However, the complexity of this task can be considerably simplified through the application of micropolar…
When an ensemble of particles interact hydrodynamically, they generically display large-scale transient structures such as swirls in sedimenting particles [1], or colloidal strings in sheared suspensions [2]. Understanding these…
Hydrogels are increasingly recognized as a versatile platform for applications spanning from tissue engineering to soft robotics or flexible electronics. Recent efforts have focused on enhancing and tailoring their mechanical performance to…
We perform finite element simulations to study the impact of defect-defect interactions on the pressure-induced buckling of thin, elastic, spherical shells containing two dimpled imperfections. Throughout, we quantify the critical buckling…
A constitutive model is presented for brittle granular materials based on a recent reformulation of the breakage mechanics theory. Compared with previous breakage mechanics-based models, the proposed model is improved to capture strain…
This paper presents an experimental investigation on pattern formation and evolution in bilayered tubular organs using swelling deformation of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and aims at supplying a thorough comparison with theoretical and…
Actin flow in the cortical cytoskeleton underneath the cell membrane generates mechanical stresses that shape the cell surface. We study this mechanism using a hydrodynamic model of a compressible active gel polymerizing at the membrane and…
Slow crack growth in a model of homogenous brittle elastic material is described as a thermal activation process where stress fluctuations allow to overcome a breaking threshold through a series of irreversible steps. We study the case of a…
In some recent experiments on entangled polymers of stress growth in startup of fast shear flows an undershoot in the shear stress is observed following the overshoot, i.e., before approaching the steady state. Whereas tumbling of the…
We study theoretically the yielding of sheared amorphous materials as a function of increasing levels of initial sample annealing prior to shear, in three widely used constitutive models and three widely studied annealing protocols. In…
The wrinkling of thin elastic objects provides a means of generating regular patterning at small scales in applications ranging from photovoltaics to microfluidic devices. Static wrinkle patterns are known to be governed by an energetic…
The nature of physical processes can depend substantially on the dimensionality of a system. One such example are buckling instabilities, which arise from the competition between axial compression and bending in elastic filaments. Thus,…