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The interaction of flexible polymers with fluid flows leads to a number of intriguing phenomena observed in laboratory experiments, namely drag reduction, elastic turbulence and heat transport modification in natural convection, and is one…
Using experiments and simulations, we study the flow of soft particles through quasi-two-dimensional hoppers. The first experiment uses oil-in-water emulsion droplets in a thin sample chamber. Due to surfactants coating the droplets, they…
We study the outflow of soft particles through quasi-two-dimensional hoppers with both experiments and simulations. The experiments utilize spheres made with soft hydrogel, silicon rubber and glass. The hopper chamber has an adjustable exit…
Microgels are soft colloidal particles that, when dispersed in a solvent, swell and deswell in response to changes in environmental conditions, such as temperature, concentration, and $p$H. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we model bulk…
Ferrogels are smart soft materials, consisting of a polymeric network and embedded magnetic particles. Novel phenomena, such as the variation of the overall mechanical properties by external magnetic fields, emerge consequently. However,…
Hydrogels have had a profound impact in the fields of tissue engineering, drug delivery, and materials science as a whole. Due to the network architecture of these materials, imbibement with water often results in uniform swelling and…
The impact of a heavier droplet into a deep pool of lighter liquid is investigated using three-dimensional numerical simulations. Unprecedented to any numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the heavier droplets can hang from the surface…
It is established that the mechanical properties of hydrogels control the fate of (stem) cells. However, despite its importance, a one-to-one correspondence between gels' stiffness and cell behaviour is still missing from literature. In…
We describe here how to apply the three dimensional imaging technique of refrecative index matched scanning to hydrogel spheres. Hydrogels are water based materials with a low refractive index, which allows for index matching with…
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…
From understanding the sand on the beach to the foam on your beer, soft sphere simulations have been crucial to the study of the amorphous world around us. However, many of the materials we interact with on a daily basis aren't comprised of…
An external load on a particle packing is distributed internally through a heterogeneous network of particle contacts. This contact force distribution determines the stability of the particle packing and the resulting structure. Here, we…
Discrete simulation methods are efficient tools to investigate the complex behaviors of complex fluids made of either dry granular materials or dilute suspensions. By contrast, materials made of soft and/or concentrated units (emulsions,…
Changes in the mechanical properties of granular materials, induced by variations in the intrinsic compressibility of the particles, are investigated by means of numerical simulations based on the combination of the Finite Element and…
The TOTEM experiment at the CERN LHC is here presented. After an overview of the experimental apparatus, the measurement of the total pp cross section, elastic scattering and diffractive phenomena is described. This physics programme will…
Raindrops falling on window panes spread upon contact, whereas hail can cause dents or scratches on the same glass window upon contact. While the former phenomenon resembles classical wetting, the latter is dictated by contact and adhesion…
The efficiency of soft particles to stabilize emulsions is examined by measuring their desorption free energy, i.e., the mechanical work required to detach the particle from a fluid interface. Here, we consider rubber-like elastic as well…
We use dedicated microfluidic devices to expose soft hydrogel particles to a rapid change in the externally applied osmotic pressure and observe a non-monotonic response: After an initial rapid compression the particle slowly reswells to…
We use computer simulations to study the microscopic dynamics of an athermal assembly of soft particles near the fluid-to-solid, jamming transition. Borrowing tools developed to study dynamic heterogeneity near glass transitions, we…
A new experimental procedure is discussed, which aims at separating thermal from quantum behavior independently of the energy barrier distribution in small particle systems. Magnetization relaxation data measured between 60 mK and 5 K on a…