Related papers: Continuum description of confluent tissues with sp…

The mechanical properties of tissues play an essential role for all tissue properties such as cell division, and differentiation or morphogenesis. Here, we study theoretically the rheology of 2-dimensional epithelial tissues described by a…

The vertex model is widely used to simulate the mechanical properties of confluent epithelia and other multicellular tissues. This inherently discrete framework allows a Cauchy stress to be attributed to each cell, and its symmetric…

Embryonic tissues deform across broad spatial and temporal scales and relax stress through active rearrangements. A quantitative link between cell-scale activity, spatial forcing, and emergent tissue-scale mechanics remains incomplete.…

Skeletal muscles are living tissues that can undergo large deformations in short periods of time and that can be activated to produce force. In this paper we use the principles of continuum mechanics to propose a dynamic, fully non-linear,…

We investigate in detail two models describing how stresses propagate and fluctuate in granular media. The first one is a scalar model where only the vertical component of the stress tensor is considered. In the continuum limit, this model…

The slow flow of amorphous solids exhibits striking heterogeneities: swift localised particle rearrangements take place in the midst of a more or less homogeneously deforming medium. Recently, experimental as well as numerical work has…

Inspired by recent experiments that highlight the role of nematic defects in the morphogenesis of epithelial tissues, we develop a minimal framework to study the dynamics of an active curved surface driven by its nematic texture. Allowing…

The purpose of this study is to propose a modified micromorphic continuum model for granular materials based on a micromechanics approach. In this model, Cauchy stress and the couple stress are symmetric conjugated with the symmetric strain…

This contribution presents a diffuse framework for modeling cracks in heterogeneous media. Interfaces are depicted by static phase-fields. This concept allows the use of non-conforming meshes. Another phase-field is used to describe the…

Cross-sections of cell shapes in a tissue monolayer typically resemble a tiling of convex polygons. Yet, examples exist where the polygons are not convex with curved cell-cell interfaces, as seen in the adaxial epidermis. To date,…

A molecular-dynamics type simulation method, which is suitable for investigating the dewetting dynamics of thin and viscous liquid layers, is discussed. The efficiency of the method is exemplified by studying a two-parameter depinning-like…

Open cellular solids usually possess random microstructures that may contain a characteristic length scale, such as the cell size. This gives rise to size dependent mechanical properties where large systems behave differently from small…

Mechanical stress plays an intricate role in gene expression in individual cells and sculpting of developing tissues. However, systematic methods of studying how mechanical stress and feedback help to harmonize cellular activities within a…

In continuum mechanics, stress concept plays an essential role. For complicated materials, different stress concepts are used with ambiguity or different understanding. Geometrically, a material element is expressed by a closed region with…

We derive the expression of the stress tensor for one and two-component lipid membranes with density and composition inhomogeneities. We first express the membrane stress tensor as a function of the free-energy density by means of the…

We study the elastic response of bilayer membranes with fixed projected area to both stretching and shape deformations. A surface tension is associated to each of these deformations. By using model amphiphilic membranes and computer…

Continuum models of plasticity fail to capture the richness of microstructural evolution because the continuum is a homogeneous construction. The present study shows that an alternative way is available at the mesoscale in the form of truly…

Biological processes, from morphogenesis to tumor invasion, spontaneously generate shear stresses inside living tissue. The mechanisms that govern the transmission of mechanical forces in epithelia and the collective response of the tissue…

A constitutive relation between stress and strain relative to a reference state is the basic assumption of elasticity theory. However, in living matter, force generation is governed by motor molecule activity, which does not depend on…

The shoulder joint is one of the functionally and anatomically most sophisticated articular systems in the human body. Both complex movement patterns and the stabilization of the highly mobile joint rely on intricate three-dimensional…