Related papers: Smart mechanically tunable surfaces with shape mem…
Manipulating surface topography is one of the most promising strategies for increasing the efficiency of numerous industrial processes involving droplet contact with superheated surfaces. In such scenarios, the droplets may immediately boil…
Shells, when confined, can deform in a broad assortment of shapes and patterns, often quite dissimilar to what is produced by their flat counterparts (plates). In this work we discuss the morphological landscape of shells deposited on a…
Temperature-sensitive hydrogels based on polymers such as poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) undergo a volume phase transition in response to changes in temperature. During this transition, distinct changes in both thermal and mechanical…
Tunable dry adhesion is a crucial mechanism in compliant manipulation. The gripping force, mainly originated from the van der Waals force between the adhesive composite and the object to be gripped, can be controlled by reversibly varying…
Two mathematical models are derived to describe the thermal dynamics of a plastics production machine. The Smart Sensor design is based on the finite volume model. The accuracy of the derived finite volume model is validated by a finite…
All-dielectric optical metasurfaces can locally control the amplitude and phase of light at the nanoscale, enabling arbitrary wavefront shaping. However, lack of post-fabrication tunability has limited the true potential of metasurfaces for…
In this paper, a compressed air-actuated soft robotic module was developed by incorporating a shape memory alloy (SMA) wire into its structure to achieve the desired bending angle with greater precision. First, a fiber-reinforced bending…
We propose a novel optimization framework for computing the medial axis transform that simultaneously preserves the medial structure and ensures high medial mesh quality. The medial structure, consisting of interconnected sheets, seams, and…
There is an increasing reckoning that the thermoelectric performance of a material is dependent on its microstructure. However, the microstructure-properties relationship often remains elusive, in part due to the complexity of the hierarchy…
We study experimentally the enhancement of splashing due to solidification. Investigating the impact of water drops on dry smooth surfaces, we show that the transition velocity to splash can be drastically reduced by cooling the surface…
Both the shape of individual particles and their surface properties contribute to the strength of a granular material under shear. Here we show the degree to which these two aspects can be intertwined. In experiments on assemblies of 3D…
Extremely compliant elastic materials, such as thin membranes or soft gels, can be deformed when wetted by a liquid drop. It is commonly assumed that the solid capillarity in "soft wetting" can be treated in the same manner as liquid…
Shape memory materials have gained considerable attention thanks to their ability to change physical properties when subjected to external stimuli such as temperature, pH, humidity, electromagnetic fields, etc. These materials are…
We use a mixture of a polymer and its dimer to control dynamics in a manner inspired by \emph{pinning} a fraction of the system. In our system of $\alpha$-methyl styrene, where the polymer has a glass transition at higher temperature than…
The dielectric susceptibility of the molecular liquid sorbitol below its calorimetric glass transition displays memory strikingly similar to that of a variety of glassy materials. During a temporary stop in cooling, the susceptibility…
Interfaces between a water droplet and a network of pillars produce eventually superhydrophobic, self-cleaning properties. Considering the surface fraction of the surface in interaction with water, it is possible to tune precisely the…
We report frozen patterns for the water droplets impacting on a cold substrate through fast-speed images. These patterns can be manipulated by several physical parameters (the droplet size, falling height, and substrate temperature), and…
Recent studies point out far-reaching connections between the topological characteristics of structural glasses and their material properties, paralleling results in quantum physics that highlight the relevance of the nature of the…
Almost all robotic systems in use have hard shells, which is limiting in many ways their full potential of physical interaction with humans or their surrounding environment. Robots with soft-shell covers offer an alternative morphology…
We perform the analysis of predictions of a classical density functional theory for associating fluids with different association strength concerned with wetting of solid surfaces. The four associating sites water-like models with…