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Elasticity of soft materials can be greatly influenced by the presence of air bubbles. Such a capillary effect is expected for a wide range of materials, from polymer gels to concentrated emulsions and colloidal suspensions. Whereas…
We investigate the shear elastic modulus of soft polymer foams loaded with hard spherical particles and we show that, for constant bubble size and gas volume fraction, strengthening is strongly dependent on the size of those inclusions.…
Investigation of inhomogeneities has wide applications in different areas of mechanics including the study of composite materials. Here, we analytically study an arbitrarily-shaped isotropic inhomogeneity embedded in a finite-sized…
Predicting the mechanical response of the soft gel materials under external deformation is of paramount importance in many areas, such as foods, pharmaceuticals, solid-liquid separations, cosmetics, aerogels and drug delivery. Most of the…
Gels are an increasingly important class of soft materials with applications ranging from regenerative medicine to commodity materials. A major drawback of gels is their relative mechanical weakness, which worsens further under strain. We…
We study the formation of a colloidal gel by means of Molecular Dynamics simulations of a model for colloidal suspensions. A slowing down with gel-like features is observed at low temperatures and low volume fractions, due to the formation…
We present experiments and simulations on cyclically sheared colloidal gels, and probe their behaviour on several different length scales. The shearing induces structural changes in the experimental gel, changing particles' neighborhoods…
We exploit the controlled drying of millimeter-sized gel beads to investigate isotropic compression of colloidal fractal gels. Using a custom dynamic light scattering setup, we demonstrate that stresses imposed by drying on the bead surface…
Soft composite solids are made of inclusions dispersed within soft matrices. They are ubiquitous in nature and form the basis of many biological tissues. In the field of materials science, synthetic soft composites are promising candidates…
This review provides an introduction to the essential physics of soft adhesion, including the thermodynamics of adhesion and wetting, the mechanics of contact with deformable materials, and the material properties that most affect…
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…
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…
Attractive colloidal gels display a solid-to-fluid transition as shear stresses above the yield stress are applied. This shear-induced transition is involved in virtually any application of colloidal gels. It is also crucial for controlling…
The structure and mechanical properties of a simple two-dimensional model of a cohesive powder are investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. Micromechanical ingredients involve elasticity, friction, a short range attraction and,…
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…
Soft lubrication has been shown to drastically affect the mobility of an object immersed in a viscous fluid in the vicinity of a purely elastic wall. In this theoretical study, we develop a minimal model incorporating viscoelasticity,…
Interactions between rigid inclusions in continuous three-dimensional linearly elastic solids and low-Reynolds-number viscous fluids have largely been quantified during the past. Prime example systems are given by functionalized elastic…
We investigated the viscoelastic properties of colloid-polymer mixtures at intermediate colloid volume fraction and varying polymer concentrations, thereby tuning the attractive interactions. Within the examined range of polymer…
Colloidal gels are elasto-plastic materials composed of an out-of-equilibrium, self-assembled network of micron-sized (solid) particles suspended in a fluid. Recent work has shown that far-field hydrodynamic interactions do not change gel…
The interplay of inertia and deformability has a substantial impact on the transport of soft particles suspended in a fluid. However, to date a thorough understanding of these systems is still missing and only a limited number of…