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Soft actuators have drawn significant attention from researchers with an inherently compliant design to address the safety issues in physical human-robot interactions. However, they are also vulnerable and pose new challenges in the design,…
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 present a simple method for accessing the elastic properties of microscopic deformable particles. This method is based on measuring the pressure-induced deformation of soft particles as they are forced through a tapered glass…
Reinforcement of elastomers by colloidal nanoparticles is an important application where microstructure needs to be understood - and if possible controlled - if one wishes to tune macroscopic mechanical properties. Here the…
In contrast with ordinary materials, living matter drives its own motion by generating active, out-of-equilibrium internal stresses. These stresses typically originate from localized active elements embedded in an elastic medium, such as…
Self-assembly is one of the crucial mechanisms allowing to design multifunctional materials. Soft hybrid materials contain components of different nature and exhibit competitive interactions which drive self-organisation into structures of…
Soft matter consists of meso-scale (nm~{\mu}m) structures that are formed by weak interactions and reorganized under thermal fluctuations. The resulting complex relaxation phenomena may be probed with microrheology, by observing the…
We discuss a class of models for particulate gels in which the particle contacts are described by an effective interaction combining a two-body attraction and a three-body angular repulsion. Using molecular dynamics, we show how varying the…
I put forward a continuum theory for active nematic gels, defined as fluids or suspensions of orientable rodlike objects endowed with active dynamics, that is based on symmetry arguments and compatibility with thermodynamics. The starting…
Can isotropic Magneto-Active Elastomers (MAEs) undergo giant magnetically induced deformations and exhibit huge magnetorheological effects simultaneously? In this experimental and theoretical study, we reveal how the macroscopic deformation…
One of the central appealing properties of magnetic gels and elastomers is that their elastic moduli can reversibly be adjusted from outside by applying magnetic fields. The impact of the internal magnetic particle distribution on this…
Nematic elastomers are rubbery solids which have liquid crystals incorporated into their polymer chains. These materials display many unusual mechanical properties, one such being the ability to form fine-scale microstructure. In this work,…
Magneto-active elastomers exhibit large, nonlinear deformations under combined mechanical loading and magnetic fields, and their effective behavior is strongly governed by microstructural heterogeneity. Predictive modeling of these…
This contribution investigates the extension of the microplane formulation to the description of transversely isotropic materials such as shale rock, foams, unidirectional composites, and ceramics. Two possible approaches are considered: 1)…
Collective excitations in magnetic materials can be investigated by means of inelastic neutron scattering. We show that this experimental method gives access to the complete spectrum of magnetic fluctuations through the energy- and…
We present a fully edible pneumatic actuator based on gelatin-glycerol composite. The actuator is monolithic, fabricated via a molding process, and measures 90 mm in length, 20 mm in width, and 17 mm in thickness. Thanks to the composite…
Magnetotaxis is a well known phenomenon in swimming microorganisms which sense magnetic fields e.g. by incorporating crystalline magnetosomes. In designing artificial active matter with tunable dynamics, external magnetic fields can provide…
We study a model of an active gel of cross-linked semiflexible filaments with additional active linkers such as myosin II clusters. We show that the coupling of the elasticity of the semiflexible filaments to the mechanical properties of…
Magneto-active elastomers (MAEs) are composite materials comprising an elastomer matrix with embedded magnetic particles, endowing the composite with coupled effective magneto-mechanical responses. It is widely reported that anisotropic…
Acoustic metamaterials are artificial structures, often lattice of resonators, with unusual properties. They can be engineered to stop wave propagation in specific frequency bands. Once manufactured, their dispersive qualities remain…