Related papers: Generic Stress Rectification in Nonlinear Elastic …
The production of mechanical stresses in living organisms largely relies on localized, force-generating active units embedded in filamentous matrices. Numerical simulations of discrete fiber networks with fixed boundaries have shown that…
When sheared, granular media experience localized plastic events known as shear transformations which generate anisotropic internal stresses. Under strong confining pressure, the response of granular media to local force multipoles is…
We study the nonlinear elastic response of a two-dimensional material to a localized boundary force, with the particular goal of understanding the differences observed between isotropic granular materials and those with hexagonal…
Force transmission at large length scales is crucial for such biological functions as cell motility and morphogenesis. The networks that transmit these forces are malleable, patterned by active forces generated at the microscale by…
A general approach is presented for understanding the stress response function in anisotropic granular layers in two dimensions. The formalism accommodates both classical anisotropic elasticity theory and linear theories of anisotropic…
Motivated by recent experiments showing the buckling of microtubules in cells, we study theoretically the mechanical response of, and force propagation along elastic filaments embedded in a non-linear elastic medium. We find that, although…
Continuum elasticity is a powerful tool applicable in a broad range of physical systems and phenomena. Yet, understanding how and on what scales material disorder may lead to the breakdown of continuum elasticity is not fully understood. We…
The response to a localized force provides a sensitive test for different models of stress transmission in granular solids. The elasto-plastic models traditionally used by engineers have been challenged by theoretical and experimental…
The classical flexure problem of non-linear incompressible elasticity is revisited for elastic materials whose mechanical response is different in tension and compression---the so-called bimodular materials. The flexure problem is chosen to…
The stress profile and reorientation of grains, in response to a point force applied to a preloaded two dimensional granular system, are calculated in the context of a continuum theory that incorporates the texture of the packing. When high…
Large-scale force generation is essential for biological functions such as cell motility, embryonic development, and muscle contraction. In these processes, forces generated at the molecular level by motor proteins are transmitted by…
Mechanical stresses are increasingly found to be associated with various biological functionalities. At the same time, topological defects are being identified across a diverse range of biological systems and are points of localized…
A macroscopic elastic description of stresses in static, preloaded granular media is derived systematically from the microscopic elasticity of individual inter-grain contacts. The assumed preloaded state and friction at contacts ensure that…
Experimental results and their interpretations are presented on the nonlinear acoustic effects of multiple scattered elastic waves in unconsolidated granular media. Short wave packets with a central frequency higher than the so-called…
Recently the materials possessing structure of molecular and supramolecular matrix are more and more actively studied. They are relative to many polymeric materials of a technological origin, such as rubber, and living biological tissues.…
In contrast with ordinary materials, living matter drives its own motion by generating active, out-of-equilibrium internal stresses. These stresses typically originate from localized active elements embedded in an elastic medium, such as…
We propose a new model to describe diffusion processes within active deformable media. Our general theoretical framework is based on physical and mathematical considerations, and it suggests to use diffusion tensors directly coupled to…
The mechanics of granular media at low liquid saturation levels remain poorly understood. Macroscopic mechanical properties are affected by microscale forces and processes, such as capillary forces, inter-particle friction, liquid flows,…
Real-world solids, such as rocks, soft tissues, and engineering materials, are often under some form of stress. Most real materials are also, to some degree, anisotropic due to their microstructure, a characteristic often called the…
Hydrogels of semiflexible biopolymers such as collagen have been shown to contract axially under shear strain, in contrast to the axial dilation observed for most elastic materials. Recent work has shown that this behavior can be understood…