Related papers: Surface tension and the strain-dependent topograph…
Solid interfaces have intrinsic elasticity. However, in most experiments, this is obscured by bulk stresses. Through microscopic observations of the contact-line geometry of a partially wetting droplet on an anisotropically stretched…
Surface tension tends to minimize the area of interfaces between pieces of matter in different thermodynamic phases, be they in the solid or the liquid state. This can be relevant for the macroscopic shape of very soft solids, and lead to a…
Soft solids and their surface deformations control the response of many natural and artificial systems. Yet, their underlying properties are vigorously debated, particularly for polymer networks. While molecular-scale theories predict no…
Recent experiments have shown that surface stresses in soft materials can have a significant strain-dependence. Here we explore the implications of this surface elasticity to show how, and when, we expect it to arise. We develop the…
Surface stress, also known as surface tension, is a fundamental material property of any interface. However, measurements of solid surface stress in traditional engineering materials, such as metals and oxides, have proven to be very…
It is widely appreciated that surface tension can dominate the behavior of liquids at small scales. Solids also have surface stresses of a similar magnitude, but they are usually overlooked. However, recent work has shown that these can…
The squeezing of soft solids, the constrained growth of biological tissues, and the swelling of soft elastic solids such as gels can generate large compressive stresses at their surfaces. This causes the otherwise smooth surface of such a…
Surface stresses have recently emerged as a key player in the mechanics of highly compliant solids. The classic theories of contact mechanics describe adhesion with a compliant substrate as a competition between surface energies driving…
Surface stress and surface energy are two fundamental parameters that determine the surface properties of any materials. While it is commonly believed that the surface stress and surface energy of liquids are identical, the relationship…
What characterises a solid is its way to respond to external stresses. Ordered solids, such crystals, display an elastic regime followed by a plastic one, both well understood microscopically in terms of lattice distortion and dislocations.…
The surface tension of compliant materials such as gels provides resistance to deformation in addition to and sometimes surpassing that due to elasticity. This article studies how surface tension changes the contact mechanics of a small…
We develop a theory of static friction by modeling the homogeneous surfaces of contact as being composed of a regular array of compressible elastic smooth microscopic inclines. Static friction is thought of as the resistance due to having…
Dielectric elastomers have recently been proposed for various biologically-relevant applications, in which they may operate in fluidic environments where surface tension effects may have a significant effect on their stability and…
We study the elastic response of bilayer membranes with fixed projected area to both stretching and shape deformations. A surface tension is associated to each of these deformations. By using model amphiphilic membranes and computer…
Soft membranes are commonly employed in shape-morphing applications, where the material is programmed to achieve a target shape upon activation by an external trigger, and as coating layers that alter the surface characteristics of bulk…
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…
Size-dependence of plastic flow is studied by discrete dislocation dynamical simulation of systems with various numbers of interacting linear edge dislocations while the stress is slowly increased. Regions between avalanches in the…
In the classic theory of solid adhesion, surface energy drives deformation to increase contact area while bulk elasticity opposes it. Recently, solid surface stress has been shown also to play an important role in opposing deformation of…
Repeated loading of a solid leads to microstructural damage that ultimately results in catastrophic material failure. While posing a major threat to the stability of virtually all materials, the microscopic origins of fatigue, especially…
The choice of elastic energies for thin plates and shells is an unsettled issue with consequences for much recent modeling of soft matter. Through consideration of simple deformations of a thin body in the plane, we demonstrate that four…