Related papers: Softer than soft: diving into squishy granular mat…
We test grip strength and shock absorption properties of various granular material in granular jamming robotic components. The granular material comprises a range of natural, manufactured, and 3D printed material encompassing a wide range…
Dry granular materials such as sand, gravel, pills, or agricultural grains, can become rigid when compressed or sheared. At low density, one can distort the shape of a container of granular material without encountering any resistance.…
Matrix stiffness expressions are derived for the particle movements in an assembly of rigid granules having compliant contacts. The derivations include stiffness terms that arise from the particle shapes at their contacts. These geometric…
If you walk on sand, it supports your weight. How do the disordered forces between particles in sand organize, to keep you from sinking? This simple question is surprisingly difficult to answer experimentally: measuring forces in three…
Soft matter systems are common in nature and make up nearly all the essential components necessary for life, from cells to the organelles within those cells. The ability of these soft materials to deform is crucial for the proper…
We review a few representative examples of granular experiments or models where phase separation, accompanied by domain coarsening, is a relevant phenomenon. We first elucidate the intrinsic non-equilibrium, or athermal, nature of granular…
This paper reviews the new highly interdisciplinary research field studying the behavior of condensed matter systems exposed to radiation. The paper highlights several relevant examples of recent advances in the field and provides a roadmap…
We performed a series of numerical vertical compression tests on assemblies of 2D granular material using a Discrete Element code and studied the results with regard to the grain shape. The samples consist of 5,000 grains made from either 3…
Materials that can be deformed by thermal stresses at room temperature are called soft materials. Colloidal suspensions comprising solid particles evenly distributed in a fluid phase (smoke, fog, ink and milk, for example),…
Extra-large deformations in ultra-soft elastic materials are ubiquitous, yet systematic studies and methods to understand the mechanics of such huge strains are lacking. Here we investigate this complex problem systematically with a simple…
It is a common point that "soft" condensed matter (like granular materials or foams) can reduce damage caused by impact or explosion. It is attributed to their ability to absorb significant energy. This is certainly the case for a…
Granular materials react to shear stresses differently than do ordinary fluids. Rather than deforming uniformly, materials such as dry sand or cohesionless powders develop shear bands: narrow zones containing large relative particle motion…
Micro-scale mechanisms, such as inter-particle and particle-fluid interactions, govern the behaviour of granular systems. While particle-scale simulations provide detailed insights into these interactions, their computational cost is often…
Soft materials such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions and liquid crystals are constituted by mesoscopic entities held together by weak forces. Their mechanical moduli are several orders of magnitude lower than those of atomic…
With suitably designed Monte Carlo simulations we have investigated the properties of mobile, impenetrable, yet deformable particles that are immersed into a porous matrix, the latter one realized via a frozen configuration of spherical…
Cohesive granular materials are found in many natural and industrial environments, but experimental platforms for exploring the innate mechanical properties of these materials are often limited by the difficulty of adjusting cohesion…
Despite their very low surface gravities, the surfaces of asteroids and comets are covered by granular materials - regolith - that can range from a fine dust to a gravel-like structure of varying depths. Understanding the dynamics of…
A granular gripper is a device used to hold objects by taking advantage of the phenomenon of Reynold's dilatancy. A membrane containing a granular sample is allowed to deform around the object to be held and then vacuum is used to jam the…
In the last two years we have witnessed the exciting experimental discovery of soft matter with nontrivial quasiperiodic long-range order - a new form of matter termed a soft quasicrystal. Two groups have independently discovered such order…
Discrete simulation methods are efficient tools to investigate the complex behaviors of complex fluids made of either dry granular materials or dilute suspensions. By contrast, materials made of soft and/or concentrated units (emulsions,…