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Variable stiffness is a key capability in biological and robotic systems, enabling adaptive interaction across tasks and environments. Mechanical metamaterials offer an alternative to conventional mechatronic solutions by encoding stiffness…

Hydrogels are soft materials engineered to suit a multitude of applications that exploit their tunable mechanochemical properties. Dynamic hydrogels employing noncovalent, physically crosslinked networks dominated by either enthalpic or…

We study the kinematics and dynamics of a highly compliant membrane disk placed head-on in a uniform flow. With increasing flow velocity, the membrane deforms nonlinearly into increasingly parachute-like shapes. These aerodynamically…

The modelling of heterogeneous and architected materials poses a significant challenge, demanding advanced homogenisation techniques. However, the complexity of this task can be considerably simplified through the application of micropolar…

Healthy articular cartilage has excellent lubricating properties, with friction coefficients reaching extremely low values at physiological pressures. Such high-performing lubricating layer in joints is attributed to the surface hydration…

Recent experiments and simulations have demonstrated that particle-covered interfaces can exist in stable non-spherical shapes as a result of the steric jamming of the interfacially trapped particles, which confers the interface with…

Hydrogels engineered for medical use within the human body need to be delivered in a minimally invasive fashion without altering their biochemical and mechanical properties to maximize their therapeutic outcomes. In this regard, key…

New additive manufacturing methods are needed to realize more complex soft robots. One example is soft fluidic robotics, which exploits fluidic power and stiffness gradients. Porous structures are an interesting type for this approach, as…

Wearable and legged robot designers face multiple challenges when choosing actuation. Traditional fully actuated designs using electric motors are multifunctional but oversized and inefficient for bearing conservative loads and for being…

Many objects in nature and industry are wrapped in a thin sheet to enhance their chemical, mechanical, or optical properties. There are similarly a variety of methods for wrapping, from pressing a film onto a hard substrate, to using…

The study of elastic structures embedded with fluid-filled cavities received considerable attention in fields such as autonomous materials, sensors, actuators, and smart systems. This work studies an elastic beam embedded with a set of…

Wearable electronics are emerging as essential tools for health monitoring, haptic feedback, and human-computer interactions. While stable contact at the device-body interface is critical for these applications, it remains challenging due…

Precise control over the flow behavior of liquids is a critical problem and is demanding for multifaceted applications. Introducing surface-engineered nanoparticles into the liquid can tune the flow behavior. However, the extent of…

Invisible cloak has long captivated the popular conjecture and attracted intensive research in various communities of wave dynamics, e.g., optics, electromagnetics, acoustics, etc. However, their inhomogeneous and extreme parameters imposed…

Soft particles display highly versatile properties with respect to hard colloids, even more so at fluid-fluid interfaces. In particular, microgels, consisting of a cross-linked polymer network, are able to deform and flatten upon adsorption…

Bonding between polymeric interfaces is encountered widely in several industrial applications. Many of these bonding processes rely on time-consuming and temperature-dependent classical mechanism of polymer interdiffusion via reptation in a…

The mechanical response of syntactic foams comprising hollow thermoplastic microspheres (HTMs) embedded in a polyurethane matrix were experimentally examined under uniaxial compressive strain. Phenomenological strain energy models were…

This article combines shape optimization and homogenization techniques by looking for the optimal design of the microstructure in composite materials and of scaffolds. The development of materials with specific properties is of huge…

With the increasing demand for personalized health monitoring, wearable sensors have gained attention in medical diagnostics and physiological tracking. Hydrogels, known for their mechanical properties and similarity to biological tissues,…

Smart surfaces that reversibly change the interfacial friction coefficients in response to external stimuli enable a wide range of applications, such as grips, seals, brake pads, packaging films, and fabrics. Here a new concept of such a…