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Hydrogel consists of a crosslinked polymer matrix imbibed with a solvent such as water at volume fractions that can exceed 90\%. They are important in many scientific and engineering applications due to their tunable physiochemical…
Fluid polyamorphism, the existence of multiple amorphous fluid states in a single-component system, has been observed or predicted in a variety of substances. A remarkable example of this phenomenon is the fluid-fluid phase transition in…
We introduce an exactly solvable statistical-mechanical model of the hydration of non-polar compounds, based on grouping water molecules in clusters where hydrogen bonds and isotropic interactions occur; interactions between clusters are…
The ability of soft matter such as drops and bubbles to change shape dynamically during interaction can give rise to counter-intuitive behaviour that may be expected of rigid materials. Here we show that dimple formation on approach and the…
The first hygroscopic tunable cloth actuator is realized via modification of commercial cloth template by a 3D nanoporous polymer hybrid. The nanoporous hybrid guarantees fast water diffusion and amplifies deformation. The cloth actuator…
Conformational transitions of flexible molecules, especially those driven by hydrophobic effects, tend to be hindered by desolvation barriers. For such transitions, it is thus important to characterize and understand the interplay between…
Soft and flexible conductors are essential in the development of soft robots, wearable electronics, as well as electronic tissue and implants. However, conventional soft conductors are inherently characterized by a large change in…
We report detailed theoretical investigations of the micro-mechanics and bulk elastic properties of composites consisting of randomly distributed stiff fibers embedded in an elastic matrix in two and three dimensions. Recent experiments…
Fluid gels are soft materials formed by shearing biopolymer solutions during the sol-gel transition. Their ability to yield and flow beyond a critical stress makes them attractive for designing versatile, biocompatible materials in food,…
When a rigid object approaches a soft material in a viscous fluid, hydrodynamic stresses arise in the lubricated contact region and deform the soft material. The elastic deformation modifies in turn the flow, hence generating a…
This work presents a model for characterizing porous, deformable media embedded with magnetorheological fluids (MRFs). These active fluids exhibit tunable mechanical and rheological properties that can be controlled through the application…
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…
Many key environmental, industrial, and energy processes rely on controlling fluid transport within subsurface porous media. These media are typically structurally heterogeneous, often with vertically-layered strata of distinct…
Multifunctional lattice materials are of great interest to modern engineering including aerospace, robotics, wave control, and sensing. In this work, we proposed and developed a new class of functional lattice materials called liquid metal…
Softer means stickier for solid adhesives, because material compliance facilitates close contact between non-conformal surfaces. Recent discoveries have revealed that soft materials can exhibit a rich array of new physics arising from…
We study the rheological behavior of mixtures of foams and pastes, which can be described as suspensions of bubbles in yield stress fluids. Model systems are designed by mixing monodisperse aqueous foams and concentrated emulsions. The…
Thermodynamics tells us to expect underwater contact between two hydrophobic surfaces to result in stronger adhesion compared to two hydrophilic surfaces. However, presence of water changes not only energetics, but also the dynamic process…
Current strategies for designing tunable locally resonant metamaterials are based on tuning the stiffness of the resonator; however, this approach presents a major shortcoming as the effective mass density is constant at high frequency.…
Classically, the constitutive behavior of materials is described either phenomenologically, or by homogenization approaches. Phenomenological approaches are computationally very efficient, but are limited for complex non-linear and…
Two types of high-strength composite hydrogels possessing the structure of interpenetrating polymer networks were synthesized via free-radical polymerization of acrylamide carried out straight within the matrix of plant or bacterial…