Related papers: Under pressure: Hydrogel swelling in a granular me…
Thermo-responsive hydrogels are smart materials that rapidly switch between hydrophilic (swollen) and hydrophobic (shrunken) states when heated past a threshold temperature, resulting in order-of-magnitude changes in gel volume. Modelling…
Although fully elastic when static, granular media become transiently elastic when being slowly sheared -- during which both the elastic energy and stress relax. Starting from this observation, we cogently derive the framework for granular…
We present results from extensive molecular dynamics simulations of collapse transitions of hydrophobic polymers in explicit water focused on understanding effects of lengthscale of the hydrophobic surface and of attractive interactions on…
We consider the swelling kinetics of layered structures. We focus on the case of triblock copolymer mesogels, although our results are applicable to other layered structures including clays. We assume the mesogels are swollen by a solvent…
Folded protein hydrogels are prime candidates as tuneable biomaterials but it is unclear to what extent their mechanical properties have mesoscopic, as opposed to molecular origins. To address this, we probe hydrogels of the muscle-derived…
We study the interaction of two parallel rigid cylinders on the surface of a thin elastic film supported on a pool of liquid. The excess energy of the surface due to the curvature of the stretched film induces attraction of the cylinders…
The motion of flexible fibers through structured fluidic environments is ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications. Most often, their dynamics results from the complex interplay between internal elastic stresses, contact forces and…
We analyze the dynamics of small particles vertically confined, by means of a linear restoring force, to move within a horizontal fluid slab in a three-dimensional (3D) homogeneous isotropic turbulent velocity field. The model that we…
Through Monte Carlo simulations and the Associating Lattice Gas Model, the phases of a two-dimensional fluid under hydrophilic confinement are evaluated. The model, in its unconfined version, reproduces the anomalous behavior of water…
The use of a novel three-dimensional graphene structure allows circumventing the limitations of the two-dimensional nature of graphene and its application in hydrogen absorption. Here we investigate hydrogen-bonding on monolayer graphene…
The coupled mechanics of fluid-filled granular media controls the behavior of many natural systems such as saturated soils, fault gouge, and landslides. The grain motion and the fluid pressure influence each other: It is well established…
Understanding the correlation between structure and rheology in colloidal suspensions is important as these suspensions are crucial in industrial applications. Moreover, colloids exhibit a wide range of structures under confinement that…
We investigate how the existence of hydrogen molecules on grain surfaces may affect H$_2$ formation efficiency in diffuse and translucent clouds. Hydrogen molecules are able to reduce the desorption energy of H atoms on grain surfaces in…
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…
The phase behavior of hydrocarbon fluids confined in porous media has been reported to deviate significantly from that in the bulk environment due to the existence of sub-10nm pores. Though experiments and simulations have measured the…
Salt crystallization is a major cause of weathering of artworks, monuments and rocks. Damage will occur if crystals continue to grow in confinement, i.e. within the pore space of these materials generating mechanical stresses. We report on…
Motivated by the aim of understanding the effect of media heterogeneity on the swimming dynamics of flagellated bacteria, we study the rotation and swimming of rigid helices in dilute suspensions experimentally and theoretically. We first…
Biological hydrogels have been increasingly sought after as e.g. wound dressings or scaffolds for regenerative medicine, due to their inherent biofunctionality in biological environments. Especially in moist wound healing, the ideal…
Granular materials are known to separate by size under a variety of circumstances. Experiments presented here and elucidated by modeling and MD simulation document a new segregation mechanism, namely segregation by friction. The experiments…
Extensive molecular dynamics computer simulations have been conducted for ethanol-water liquid mixtures in the water-rich side of the composition range, with 10, 20 and 30 mol % of the alcohol, at temperatures between room temperature and…