Related papers: Programming stiff inflatable shells from planar pa…

We present an experimental method to fabricate centimetric thin elastic capsules with highly uniform thickness and negligible bending stiffness using silicone elastomers. In our experiments, the capsules thickness is tunable at fabrication,…

A buckled sheet offers a reservoir of material that can be unfurled at a later time. For sufficiently thin yet stiff materials, this geometric process has a striking mechanical feature: when the slack runs out, the material locks to further…

In active matter systems, deformable boundaries provide a mechanism to organize internal active stresses and perform work on the external environment. To study a minimal model of such a system, we perform particle-based simulations of an…

Soft particles such as microgels and core-shell particles can undergo significant and anisotropic deformations when adsorbed to a liquid interface. This, in turn, leads to a complex phase behavior upon compression. Here we develop a…

The bistability of embedded elements provides a natural route through which to introduce reprogrammability to elastic meta-materials. One example of this is the soft morphable sheet, in which bistable elements that can be snapped up or…

We consider a multiscale approach based on immersed methods for the efficient computational modeling of tissues composed of an elastic matrix (in two or three-dimensions) and a thin vascular structure (treated as a co-dimension two…

Orthotropic shell structures are ubiquitous in biology and engineering, from bacterial cell walls to reinforced domes. We present a rescaling transformation that maps an orthotropic shallow shell to an isotropic one with a different local…

A flat sheet programmed with a planar pattern of spontaneous shape change will morph into a curved surface. Such metric mechanics is seen in growing biological sheets, and may be engineered in actuating soft matter sheets such as…

Hard-magnetic soft materials (HMSMs) are particulate composites that consist of a soft matrix embedded with particles of high remnant magnetic induction. Since the application of an external magnetic flux induces a body couple in HMSMs, the…

Designing and fabricating structures with specific mechanical properties requires understanding the intricate relationship between design parameters and performance. Understanding the design-performance relationship becomes increasingly…

Curved elastic shells can be fabricated through molding or by harnessing residual stresses. These shells often exhibit snap-through behavior and multistability when loaded. We present a unique way of fabricating curved elastic shells that…

The multiscale patch scheme is built from given small micro-scale simulations of complicated physical processes to empower large macro-scale simulations. By coupling small patches of simulations over unsimulated spatial gaps, large savings…

Digital stiffness programmability is fulfilled with a heterogeneous mechanical metamaterial. The prototype consists of an elastomer matrix containing tessellations of diamond shaped cavities selectively confined with semi-rigid plastic beam…

Shells, i.e., objects made of a thin layer of material following a surface, are among the most common structures in use. They are highly efficient, in terms of material required to maintain strength, but also prone to deformation and…

Shape-morphing metamaterials enable adaptive structures capable of complex functional deformations, with applications ranging from reconfigurable structures and soft robotics to medical devices. However, their design remains challenging due…

Curvature and mechanics are intimately connected for thin materials, and this coupling between geometry and physical properties is readily seen in folded structures from intestinal villi and pollen grains, to wrinkled membranes and…

In this work, we discuss and numerically validate a strategy to attain reversible macroscopic changes in the wave propagation characteristics of cellular metamaterials with soft microstructures. The proposed cellular architecture is…

Intraoperative observation of tissue internal structure is often difficult. Hence, real-time soft tissue deformation is essential for the localization of tumor and other internal structures. We propose a method to simulate the internal…

Although metamaterials have been widely used for controlling elastic waves through bandgap engineering, the directed guidance of stress waves in non-periodic structures has remained a challenge. This work demonstrates that spatially graded…

When a single long piece of elastic wire is injected trough channels into a confining two-dimensional cavity, a complex structure of hierarchical loops is formed. In the limit of maximum packing density, these structures are described by…