Related papers: Ballooning in Spiders using Multiple Silk Threads
Particle drifts perpendicular to the background magnetic field have been proposed by some authors as an explanation for the very efficient perpendicular transport of solar energetic particles (SEPs). This process, however, competes with…
We develop the elastic theory for inversion-asymmetric tethered membranes and use it to identify and study their possible phases. Asymmetry in a tethered membrane causes spontaneous curvature, which in general depends upon the local…
I present the numerical computation of speed and direction of the drift of a spiral wave in an excitable medium in the presence of an electric field. In contrast to earlier results, the drift speed presents a strong variation close to the…
We propose a scaling ansatz for the elastic energy of a system near the critical jamming transition in terms of three relevant fields: the compressive strain $\Delta \phi$ relative to the critical jammed state, the shear strain $\epsilon$,…
The thermal rounding of the depinning transition of an elastic interface sliding on a washboard potential is studied through analytic arguments and very accurate numerical simulations. We confirm the standard view that well below the…
Actuating periodically an elastic filament in a viscous liquid generally breaks the constraints of Purcell's scallop theorem, resulting in the generation of a net propulsive force. This observation suggests a method to design simple…
A slender thread of elastic hydrogel is susceptible to a surface instability that is reminiscent of the classical Rayleigh-Plateau instability of liquid jets. The final, highly nonlinear states that are observed in experiments arise from a…
We report on the capillary-induced snapping of elastic beams. We show that a millimeter-sized water drop gently deposited on a thin buckled polymer strip may trigger an elastocapillary snap-through instability. We investigate experimentally…
Several experiments on tagged molecules or particles in living systems suggest that they move anomalously slow - their mean squared displacement (MSD) increase slower than linearly with time. Leading models aimed at understanding these…
When a flat elastic strip is compressed along its axis, it is bent in one of two possible directions via spontaneous symmetry breaking and forms a cylindrical arc, a phenomenon well known as Euler buckling. When this cylindrical section is…
We study a regularisation of Coulomb's friction law on the propagation of local slip at an interface between a deformable and a rigid solid. This regularisation, which was proposed based on experimental observations, smooths the effect of a…
We investigate the branching of positive streamers in air and present the first systematic investigation of splitting into more than two branches. We study discharges in 100 mbar artificial air that is exposed to voltage pulses of 10 kV…
This research proposes a novel morphing structure with shells inspired by the movement of pillbugs. Instead of the pillbug body, a loopcoupled mechanism based on slider-crank mechanisms is utilized to achieve the rolling up and spreading…
We study the snapping instability of a spherical elastic shell induced by a viscous flow, the umbrella flipping problem when life is at low Reynolds numbers. We combine precision desktop-scale experiments, fluid-structure simulations, shell…
We study slip avalanches in disordered materials under an increasing external load in the framework of a fiber bundle model. Over-stressed fibers of the model do not break, instead they relax in a stick-slip event which may trigger an…
By adding minute concentrations of a high molecular weight polymer, liquid jets or bridges collapsing under the action of surface tension develop a characteristic shape of uniform threads connecting spherical fluid drops. In this paper,…
A weak spring is connected at one end to a rotor turning at constant angular velocity. The spring extends to a stretched length as determined by the spring mass, rest length, spring constant, rotor radius and rotor angular velocity. When…
We revisit the classical problem of a polymer confined in a slit in both of its static and dynamic aspects. We confirm a number of well known scaling predictions and analyse their range of validity by means of comprehensive Molecular…
We study the swelling of a flexible linear chain composed of active particles by analytical theory and computer simulation. Three different situations are considered: a free chain, a chain confined to an external harmonic trap, and a chain…
The ciliary locomotion and feeding of an axisymmetric micro-swimmer in a complex fluid whose viscosity depends on nutrient concentration are investigated numerically. The micro-swimmer is modeled as having spheroidal geometry, and ciliary…