Related papers: Elasticity-Controlled Jamming Criticality in Soft …
Elastohydrodynamic lubrication, or simply soft lubrication, refers to the motion of deformable objects near a boundary lubricated by a fluid, and is one of the key physical mechanisms to minimise friction and wear in natural and engineered…
This paper presents the derivation of the homogenized equations that describe the macroscopic mechanical response of elastomers filled with liquid inclusions in the setting of small quasistatic deformations. The derivation is carried out…
A micromechanical approach is set-up to analyse the increase in elastic stiffness related to development of plastic deformation (the elastoplastic coupling concept) occurring during the compaction of a ceramic powder. Numerical simulations…
In equilibrium, the physical properties of matter are set by the interactions between the constituents. In contrast, the energy input of the individual components controls the behavior of synthetic or living active matter. Great progress…
Solids are distinguished from fluids by their ability to resist shear. In traditional solids, the resistance to shear is associated with the emergence of broken translational symmetry as exhibited by a non-uniform density pattern, which…
We investigate criticality near the jamming transition in both quiescent systems and those under shear by considering the effect of mechanical training on the jamming transition and nonlinear rheology. We simulate frictionless soft…
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.…
Polymer composites are ideal candidates for next generation biomimetic soft materials because of their exquisite bottom-up designability. However, the richness of behaviours comes at a price: the need for precise and extensive…
We consider an elastic composite material containing particulate inclusions in a soft elastic matrix that is bounded by a rigid wall, e.g., the substrate. If such a composite serves as a soft actuator, forces are imposed on or induced…
Soft colloids allow to explore high density states well beyond random close packing. An important open question is whether softness controls the dynamics under these dense conditions. While experimental works reported conflicting results,…
The formation of periodic wrinkles in soft layered materials due to mechanical instabilities is prevalent in nature and has been proposed for use in multiple applications. However, such phenomena have been explored predominantly in…
We study the elastic properties of soft solids containing air bubbles. Contrary to standard porous materials, the softness of the matrix allows for a coupling of the matrix elasticity to surface tension forces brought in by the bubbles.…
This paper contains a thorough investigation of the performance of electrically activated layered soft dielectric composite actuators under plane deformation. Noting that the activation can be induced controlling either the voltage or the…
Syntactic foams are composite materials frequently used in applications requiring the properties of low density and high damage tolerance. In the present work, polymer-based syntactic foams were studied under cyclic compression in order to…
We use computer simulations to study the microscopic dynamics of an athermal assembly of soft particles near the fluid-to-solid, jamming transition. Borrowing tools developed to study dynamic heterogeneity near glass transitions, we…
Digital stiffness programmability is fulfilled with a heterogeneous mechanical metamaterial. The prototype consists of an elastomer matrix containing tessellations of diamond shaped cavities selectively confined with semi-rigid plastic beam…
Instabilities in thin elastic sheets, such as wrinkles, are of broad interest both from a fundamental viewpoint and also because of their potential for engineering applications. Nematic liquid crystal elastomers offer a new form of control…
Soft materials consist of basic units that are significantly larger than an atom but much smaller than the overall dimensions of the sample. The label "soft condensed matter" emphasizes that the large basic building blocks of these…
A numerical study on the elastic response of single- and multi-layer systems formed by alternating pentamode lattices and stiffening plates is presented. Finite element simulations are conducted to analyze the dependence of the effective…
Simulations are used to find the zero temperature jamming threshold, $\phi_j$, for soft, bidisperse disks in the presence of small fixed particles, or "pins", arranged in a lattice. The presence of pins leads, as one expects, to a decrease…