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Solid contacts involving soft materials are important in mechanical engineering or biomechanics. Experimentally, such contacts have been shown to shrink significantly under shear, an effect which is usually explained using adhesion models.…
This paper presents a general and robust method for the fluid-structure interaction of membranes and shells undergoing large displacement and large added-mass effects by coupling an immersed-boundary method with a shell finite-element…
Active solids consume energy to allow for actuation, shape change, and wave propagation not possible in equilibrium. Whereas active interfaces have been realized across many experimental systems, control of three-dimensional (3D) bulk…
With the explosive growth of rigid-body simulators, policy learning in simulation has become the de facto standard for most rigid morphologies. In contrast, soft robotic simulation frameworks remain scarce and are seldom adopted by the soft…
A single flexible filament can be actuated to escape from the scallop theorem and generate net propulsion at low Reynolds number. In this work, we study the dynamics of a simple boundary-driven multi-filament swimmer, a two-arm clamshell…
The friction of a nanosized sphere in commensurate contact with a flat substrate is investigated by performing molecular dynamics simulations. Particular focus is on the distribution of shear stress within the contact region. It is noticed…
Exploring the design and control strategies of soft robots through simulation is highly attractive due to its cost-effectiveness. Although many existing models (e.g., finite element analysis) are effective for simulating soft robotic…
Internal activity can fundamentally reshape the mechanical behavior of solids, yet its role in softening and failure remains incompletely understood. In this study, we investigate spontaneous deformations in activated solids via non-affine…
Natural organisms can convert environmental stimuli into sensory feedback to regulate their body and realize active adaptivity. However, realizing such a feedback-regulation mechanism in synthetic material systems remains a grand challenge.…
We investigate the mechanics of bistable, hard-magnetic, elastic beams, combining experiments, finite element modeling (FEM), and a reduced-order theory. The beam is made of a hard magneto-rheological elastomer, comprising two segments with…
We study a simple micro-mechanical device that does not lose its snap-through behavior in an environment dominated by fluctuations. The main idea is to have several degrees of freedom that can cooperatively resist the de-synchronizing…
The accurate mathematical modeling of droplet impact dynamics on micro-structured surfaces is fundamental to understanding and predicting complex fluid behaviors relevant to a wide range of engineering and scientific applications. In…
In this study, we propose and analyze in simulations a new, highly flexible method of implementing synaptic plasticity in a wafer-scale, accelerated neuromorphic hardware system. The study focuses on globally modulated STDP, as a special…
Living organisms have mastered the dynamic control of internal stresses to perform an array of functions, such as change shape and locomote. State-of-the-art attempts to replicate this ability in synthetic materials are rudimentary in…
The critical buckling characteristics of hydrostatically pressurized complete spherical shells filled with an elastic medium are demonstrated. A model based on small deflection thin shell theory, the equations of which are solved in…
A pinned-free beam in axial fluid flow, subjected to feedback-based actuation at the pinned end, is investigated. The actuation may be a moment or a prescribed angle and it is proportional to the state (curvature, slope, or displacement) of…
Foam is a canonical example of disordered soft matter where local force balance leads to the competition of many metastable configurations. Here we present an experimental and theoretical framework for "active foam" where an individual…
We have designed and tested experimentally a morphing structure consisting of a neutrally stable thin cylindrical shell driven by a multiparameter piezoelectric actuation. The shell is obtained by plastically deforming an initially flat…
A snap-through bifurcation occurs when a bistable structure loses one of its stable states and moves rapidly to the remaining state. For example, a buckled arch with symmetrically clamped ends can snap between an inverted and a natural…
Surface curvature of magnetic systems can lead to many static and dynamic effects which are not present in flat systems of the same material. These emergent magnetochiral effects can lead to frequency nonreciprocity of spin waves, which has…