Related papers: Crack and pull-off dynamics of adhesive, viscoelas…
Forced detachment of a single polymer chain, strongly-adsorbed on a solid substrate, is investigated by two complementary methods: a coarse-grained analytical dynamical model, based on the Onsager stochastic equation, and Molecular Dynamics…
The static friction coefficient between two materials is considered to be a material constant. We present experiments demonstrating that the ratio of shear to normal force needed to move contacting blocks can, instead, vary systematically…
This study numerically investigated the friction of viscoelastic objects with grooves. A 3D viscoelastic block with grooves on a rigid substrate is slowly pushed from the lateral side under uniform pressure on the top surface. The local…
A huge number of technological and biological systems involves the lubricated contact between rough surfaces of soft solids in relative accelerated motion. Examples include dynamical rubber seals and the human joints. In this study we…
We study the time dependency of the (average) interfacial separation between an elastic solid with a flat surface and a rigid solid with a randomly rough surface, squeezed together in a fluid. We use an analytical theory describing the…
Pull-in (or electro-mechanical) instability occurs when a drastic decrease in the thickness of a dielectric elastomer results in electrical breakdown, which limits the applications of dielectric devices. Here we derive the criteria for…
We explore the Mode I fracture toughness of a polymer gel containing a semi-infinite, growing crack. First, an expression is derived for the energy release rate within the linearized, small-strain setting. This expression reveals a crack…
We have designed a new experimental setup able to investigate fracture of soft materials at small scales. At high crack velocity, where energy is mostly dissipated through viscoelastic processes, we observe an increasingly large high strain…
We consider a linearly elastic body consisting of two equal symmetrically arranged layers (or half-planes) connected by a structured interface as a prospective crack path. The interface is comprised by periodic discrete system of bonds. In…
We investigate the quasi-static growth of elastic fibers in the presence of dry or viscous friction. An unusual form of destabilization beyond a critical length is described. In order to characterize this phenomenon, a new definition of…
Many new soft but tough rubbery materials have been recently discovered and new applications such as flexible prosthetics, stretchable electrodes or soft robotics continuously emerge. Yet, a credible multi-scale quantitative picture of…
A liquid surface touching a solid usually deforms in a near-wall meniscus region. In this work, we replace part of the free surface with a soft polymer and examine the shape of this elasto-capillary meniscus, result of the interplay between…
The dynamics of rapid brittle cracks is commonly studied in the framework of linear elastic fracture mechanics where nonlinearities are neglected. However, recent experimental and theoretical work demonstrated explicitly the importance of…
Stick-slip motion, a common phenomenon observed during crawling of cells, is found to be strongly sensitive to the substrate stiffness. Stick-slip behaviours have previously been investigated typically using purely elastic substrates. For a…
An improved linear model is developed for elasto-plastic and adhesive contact. New correlations are proposed and validated to estimate the key input parameters of the model, including contact stiffness, yield point, maximum pull-off force…
The present work deals with the problem of a semi-infinite crack steadily propagating in an elastic body subject to plane-strain shear loading. It is assumed that the mechanical response of the body is governed by the theory of…
A deterministic theory describing the melting of an ultrathin lubricant film between two atomically smooth solid surfaces has been developed. The lubricant state is described by introducing a parameter of excess volume that arises owing to…
Nonlinear elastic responses of short and stiff polyelectrolytes are investigated by dynamic simulations on a single molecule level. When a polyelectrolyte condensate undergoes a mechanical unfolding, two types of force-extension curves,…
Using discrete element simulations based on molecular dynamics, we investigate the mechanical behavior of sheared, dry, frictional granular media in the "dense" and "critical" regimes. We find that this behavior is partitioned between…
We show the existence of quasistatic evolutions in a fracture model for brittle materials by a vanishing viscosity approach, in the setting of planar linearized elasticity. The crack is not prescribed a priori and is selected in a class of…