Related papers: Soft glassy materials with tunable extensibility
Soft particulate gels include materials we can eat, squeeze, or 3D print. From foods to bio-inks to cement hydrates, these gels are composed of a small amount of particulate matter (proteins, polymers, colloidal particles, or agglomerates…
Granular materials are ubiquitous in nature and are used extensively in daily life and in industry. The modeling of these materials remains challenging; therefore, finding models with acceptable predictive accuracy that at the same time…
We study the solid-to-liquid transition in a two-dimensional fully periodic soft-glassy model with an imposed spatially heterogeneous stress. The model we consider consists of droplets of a dispersed phase jammed together in a continuous…
Bidisperse particle systems are common in both natural and engineered materials, and it is known to influence packing, flow, and stability. However, their direct effect on elastic properties, particularly in systems with attractive…
Sheared multi-component bulk metallic glasses are characterized by both chemical and structural disorder that define their properties. We investigate the behavior of the local, microstructural elastic modulus across the plastic yielding…
This paper describes a modification of Ehlers' model for the inelastic behavior of granular media. The modified model can be applied for describing the inelastic behavior of porous media. The key feature is a subtle change of the yield…
Based upon mesoscale simulations of binary mixtures with very low surface tension and positive disjoining pressure (frustration), we measure the correlation length of the stress field within the flowing mixture, as a function of the…
For optimal application, pressure-sensitive adhesives must have rheological properties in between those of a viscoplastic solid and those of a viscoelastic liquid. Such adhesives can be produced by emulsion polymerisation, resulting in…
Observations of glassy dynamics in experiments on confluent cellular tissue have inspired a wealth of computational and theoretical research to model their emergent collective behavior. Initial studies of the physical properties of several…
Elasticity of soft materials can be greatly influenced by the presence of air bubbles. Such a capillary effect is expected for a wide range of materials, from polymer gels to concentrated emulsions and colloidal suspensions. Whereas…
Understanding surface mechanics of soft solids, such as soft polymeric gels, is crucial in many engineering processes, such as dynamic wetting and adhesive failure. In these situations, a combination of capillary and elastic forces drives…
We investigate by means of molecular dynamics simulation a coarse-grained polymer glass model focusing on (quasi-static and dynamical) shear-stress fluctuations as a function of temperature T and sampling time $\Delta t$. The linear…
We present a simple method for accessing the elastic properties of microscopic deformable particles. This method is based on measuring the pressure-induced deformation of soft particles as they are forced through a tapered glass…
We describe size-varying cylindrical particles made from silicone elastomers that can serve as building blocks for robotic granular materials. The particle size variation, which is achieved by inflation, gives rise to changes in stiffness…
Molecular dynamics simulations are performed to investigate heterogeneous dynamics in amorphous glassy materials under oscillatory shear strain. We consider three-dimensional binary Lennard-Jones mixture well below the glass transition…
From pasta to biological tissues to contact lenses, gel and gel-like materials inherently soften as they swell with water. In dry, low-relative-humidity environments, these materials stiffen as they de-swell with water. Here, we use…
Fluid gels are soft materials formed by shearing biopolymer solutions during the sol-gel transition. Their ability to yield and flow beyond a critical stress makes them attractive for designing versatile, biocompatible materials in food,…
Several surfactant molecules self-assemble in solution to form long, flexible wormlike micelles which get entangled with each other, leading to viscoelastic gel phases. We discuss our recent work on the rheology of such a gel formed in the…
Deployable structures, essential across various engineering applications ranging from umbrellas to satellites, are evolving to include soft, morphable designs where geometry drives transformation. However, a major challenge for soft…
Using molecular dynamics simulations, we show that a widely-accepted theoretical prediction for glassy-polymeric strain hardening moduli ($G_R \propto \rho_e$, where $\rho_e$ is the entanglement density) fails badly for semiflexible…