Related papers: A tutorial on the stability and bifurcation analys…
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…
These lectures focus on bifurcation analysis as a tool for studying phase transitions that occur in models of liquid-crystalline systems. We show how this approach bridges the gap between the phenomenological Landau theory and the --- often…
Inelastic mechanical responses in solids, such as plasticity, damage and crack initiation, are typically modeled in constitutive ways that display microstructural and loading dependence. Nevertheless, {linear} elasticity at infinitesimal…
We give a bird's-eye view of the plastic deformation of crystals aimed at the statistical physics community, and a broad introduction into the statistical theories of forced rigid systems aimed at the plasticity community. Memory effects in…
Bidisperse particle systems are common in both natural and engineered materials, and it is known to influence packing, flow, and stability. However, their direct effect on elastic properties, particularly in systems with attractive…
We study the lubrication of fluid-immersed soft interfaces and show that elastic deformation couples tangential and normal forces and thus generates lift. We consider materials that deform easily, due to either geometry (e.g. a shell) or…
Dielectric materials are critical building blocks for modern electronics such as sensors, actuators, and transistors. With rapid advances in soft and stretchable electronics for emerging human- and robot-interfacing applications, there is a…
Predicting the mechanical response of the soft gel materials under external deformation is of paramount importance in many areas, such as foods, pharmaceuticals, solid-liquid separations, cosmetics, aerogels and drug delivery. Most of the…
The modes of attachments, detachments and relaxations of molecules of rubbers and gels on solid surfaces are keys to understanding their frictional properties. An early stochastic model of polymer relaxations on surfaces was given by…
Formation and rupture of vesicles is a fundamental process underlying diverse phenomena in biology, materials science, and biomedical applications. Vesicles form when the area of a growing disk-like membrane exceeds a critical value at…
Thin films made of deformable micro- and nano-units, such as biological membranes, polymer interfaces, and particle-laden liquid surfaces, exhibit a complex behavior during drying, with consequences for various applications like wound…
Mechanical reliability plays an outsized role in determining the durability of flexible electronic devices because of the significant mechanical stresses they can experience during manufacturing and operation. These devices are typically…
We present a theoretical and computational model for the behavior of a porous solid undergoing two interdependent processes, the finite deformation of a solid and species migration through the solid, which are distinct in bulk and on…
Dense suspensions of fine particles are significant in numerous biological, industrial, and natural phenomena. They also provide an ideal tool to develop statistical mechanics description for out-of-equilibrium systems. Predicting the bulk…
We study the dynamics of the solid to liquid transition for a model material made of elastic particles immersed in a viscous fluid. The interaction between particle surfaces includes their viscous lubrication, a sharp repulsion when they…
Many physical systems can be modelled as parameter-dependent variational problems. In numerous cases, multiple equilibria co-exist, requiring the evaluation of their stability, and the monitoring of transitions between them. Generally, the…
Liquid crystal elastomers are rubber-like solids with liquid crystalline mesogens (stiff, rod-like molecules) incorporated either into the main chain or as a side chain of the polymer. These solids display a range of unusual…
We show that two-dimensional systems of deformable particles undergo a continuous liquid-hexatic transition upon compression or cooling, but no hexatic-solid transition-even at zero temperature and high density. Numerical simulations reveal…
In this paper, we present a 2D numerical model developed to simulate the dynamics of soft, deformable particles. To accommodate significant particle deformations, the particle surface is represented as a narrow shell composed of mass points…
Mechanical metamaterials made of flexible building blocks can exhibit a plethora of extreme mechanical responses, such as negative elastic constants, shape-changes, programmability and memory. To date, dissipation has largely remained…