Related papers: Elasticity-Controlled Jamming Criticality in Soft …
Many practically relevant materials combine properties of viscous fluids and elastic solids to viscoelastic behavior. Our focus is on the induced dynamic behavior of damped finite-sized particulate inclusions in such substances. We…
In this paper, we present a 2D numerical model developed to simulate the dynamics of soft, deformable particles. To accommodate significant particle deformations, the particle surface is represented as a narrow shell composed of mass points…
Dispersing small particles in a liquid can produce surprising behaviors when the solids fraction becomes large: rapid shearing drives these systems out of equilibrium and can lead to dramatic increases in viscosity (shear-thickening) or…
Mechanical metamaterials are artificial composites with tunable advanced mechanical properties. Particularly interesting types of mechanical metamaterials are flexible metamaterials, which harness internal rotations and instabilities to…
Cavitation in soft elastomers and adhesives is often viewed as an elastic instability, commonly tied to the study of incompressible solids. It is the first step prior to fibrillation and ultimate failure in adhesives. Building on the work…
In this thesis I present most of the results obtained during my PhD, where I worked on different subjects regarding jamming in systems of frictionless spheres. In particular, I focused on microscopic properties of jammed packings, such as…
The micromechanics of a variety of systems experiencing a structural arrest due to their high density could be unified by a thermodynamic framework governing their approach to 'jammed' configurations. The mechanism of supporting an applied…
Variable stiffness is a key capability in biological and robotic systems, enabling adaptive interaction across tasks and environments. Mechanical metamaterials offer an alternative to conventional mechatronic solutions by encoding stiffness…
In this contribution a magnetoactive elastomer (MAE) of mixed content, i.e., a polymer matrix filled with a mixture of magnetically soft and magnetically hard spherical particles, is considered. The object we focus at is an elementary unit…
The yielding of foams, concentrated emulsions, pastes and other soft materials under applied strain is often characterized by measuring the complex shear modulus as a function of strain amplitude at low frequency. Results obtained for…
Here, we provide an overview of theoretical approaches to semiflexible polymers and their networks. Such semiflexible polymers have large bending rigidities that can compete with the entropic tendency of a chain to crumple up into a random…
Euler buckling is the elastic instability of a column subjected to longitudinal compression forces at its ends. The buckling instability occurs when the compressing load reaches a critical value and an infinitesimal fluctuation leads to a…
Self-organization, and transitions from reversible to irreversible behaviour, of interacting particle assemblies driven by externally imposed stresses or deformation is of interest in comprehending diverse phenomena in soft matter. They…
Electromagnetic (EM) composites have stimulated tremendous fundamental and practical interests owing to their flexible electromagnetic properties and extensive potential engineering applications. Hence, it is necessary to systematically…
Changes in the mechanical properties of granular materials, induced by variations in the intrinsic compressibility of the particles, are investigated by means of numerical simulations based on the combination of the Finite Element and…
Dense particle packings acquire rigidity through a nonequilibrium jamming transition commonly observed in materials from emulsions to sandpiles. We describe athermal packings and their observed geometric phase transitions using fully…
Elastic properties and internal states of isotropic sphere packings are studied by numerical simulations. Several numerical protocols to assemble dense configurations are compared. One, which imitates experiments with lubricated contacts,…
We study the effect of thermalization on the rigidity of a randomly packed soft repulsive sphere system around the jamming point by analyzing the shear-modulus using the cloned liquid theory with the 1 step replica symmetry breaking ansatz…
Cavitation is a common damage mechanism in soft solids. Here, we study this using a phase-separation technique in stretched, elastic solids to controllably nucleate and grow small cavities by several orders of magnitude. The ability to make…
A wide range of disordered materials, from biological to geological assemblies, feature discrete elements undergoing large shape changes. How significant geometrical variations at the microscopic scale affect the response of the assembly,…