Related papers: Cutting and slicing weak solids
Fracture of highly stretched materials challenges our view of how things break. We directly visualize rupture of tough double-network (DN) gels at >50\% strain. During fracture, crack tip shapes obey a $x\sim y^{1.6}$ power-law, in contrast…
In the classic theory of solid adhesion, surface energy drives deformation to increase contact area while bulk elasticity opposes it. Recently, solid surface stress has been shown also to play an important role in opposing deformation of…
It is widely appreciated that surface tension can dominate the behavior of liquids at small scales. Solids also have surface stresses of a similar magnitude, but they are usually overlooked. However, recent work has shown that these can…
A huge number of technological and biological systems involves the lubricated contact between rough surfaces of soft solids in relative accelerated motion. Examples include dynamical rubber seals and the human joints. In this study we…
The squeezing of soft solids, the constrained growth of biological tissues, and the swelling of soft elastic solids such as gels can generate large compressive stresses at their surfaces. This causes the otherwise smooth surface of such a…
The stability of high-speed liquid jets is crucial for applications ranging from precision printing to needle-free drug delivery, yet it is fundamentally limited by capillary-driven breakup. A common strategy to stabilize jets is to use…
Soft particulate gels include materials we can eat, squeeze, or 3D print. From foods to bio-inks to cement hydrates, these gels are composed of a small amount of particulate matter (proteins, polymers, colloidal particles, or agglomerates…
We have designed a new experimental setup able to investigate fracture of soft materials at small scales. At high crack velocity, where energy is mostly dissipated through viscoelastic processes, we observe an increasingly large high strain…
Brittle materials exhibit sharp dynamical fractures when meeting Griffith's criterion, whereas ductile materials blunt a sharp crack by plastic responses. Upon continuous pulling ductile materials exhibit a necking instability which is…
Several mechanisms cause a granular material to strengthen over time at low applied stress. The strength is determined from the maximum frictional force F_max experienced by a shearing plate in contact with wet or dry granular material…
The solidification process during squeeze casting is analyzed based on the classical solidification and plastic deformation theory. The linear relationship between punch velocity and the solidification rate is established if the density…
A popular physics legend holds that scissors can cut paper with a speed faster than light. Here this counter-intuitive myth is investigated theoretically using four simple examples of scissors. For simplicity, all cases will involve a…
Fracture processes are ubiquitous in soft materials, even in complex fluids, subjected to stresses. To investigate these processes in a simple geometry, we use a model self-assembled transient gel and study the instability patterns obtained…
When a block made of an elastomer is subjected to large shear, its surface remains flat. When a block of biological soft tissue is subjected to large shear, it is likely that its surface in the plane of shear will buckle (apparition of…
We introduce a simple model to describe the frictional properties of granular media under shear. We model the friction force in term of the horizontal velocity v and the vertical position z of the slider, interpreting z as a constitutive…
Slow and dense granular flows often exhibit narrow shear bands, making them ill-suited for a continuum description. However, smooth granular flows have been shown to occur in specific geometries such as linear shear in the absence of…
Are solids intrinsically different from liquids? Must a finite stress be applied in order to induce flow? Or, instead, do all solids only look rigid on some finite timescales and eventually flow if an infinitesimal shear stress is applied?…
Liquid drops on soft solids generate strong deformations below the contact line, resulting from a balance of capillary and elastic forces. The movement of these drops may cause strong, potentially singular dissipation in the soft solid.…
In comparative and developmental neuroanatomy one encounters questions regarding the deformation of neural tissue under stress. The motivation of this note is an observation (Barbas {\it et al}) that at cortical folds or gyri, the layers of…
Material failure by adiabatic shear is analyzed in viscoplastic metals that can demonstrate up to three distinct softening mechanisms: thermal softening, ductile fracture, and melting. An analytical framework is constructed for studying…