Related papers: Dynamic, viscoelasticity-driven shape change of el…
The superiority of many natural surfaces at resisting soft, sticky biofoulants has inspired the integration of dynamic topography with mechanical instability to promote self-cleaning artificial surfaces. The physics behind this novel…
The shape of liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) with spatial variation in the director orientation can be transformed by exposure to a stimulus. Here, informed by previously reported analytical treatments, we prepare complex spiral…
We carried out dynamic force manipulations $in$ $silico$ on a variety of superhelical protein fragments from myosin, chemotaxis receptor, vimentin, fibrin, and phenylalanine zippers that vary in size and topology of their $\alpha$-helical…
The three-dimensional shapes of thin lamina such as leaves, flowers, feathers, wings etc, are driven by the differential strain induced by the relative growth. The growth takes place through variations in the Riemannian metric, given on the…
We consider a three-dimensional network of aqueous droplets joined by single lipid bilayers to form a cohesive, tissue-like material. The droplets in these networks can be programmed to have distinct osmolarities so that osmotic gradients…
Image acquisition techniques such as micro-computed tomography are nowadays widely available. Quantitative analysis of the resulting 3D image data enables geometric characterization of the micro-structure of materials. Stochastic geometry…
Blisters, delaminated regions that form in multilayered structures under compressive stresses, are observed across a wide range of length scales, from two-dimensional materials to protective coatings and laminated composites. Far from being…
We derived free energy functional of a bilayer lipid membrane from the first principles of elasticity theory. The model explicitly includes position-dependent mutual slide of monolayers and bending deformation. Our free energy functional of…
The macroscopic properties of polymeric fluids are inherited from the material properties of the fibers embedded in the solvent. The behavior of such passive fibers in flow has been of interest in a wide range of systems, including cellular…
We present a mathematical model of polymer bilayers that undergo large bending deformations when actuated by non-mechanical stimuli such as thermal effects. The simple model captures a large class of nonlinear bending effects and can be…
Certain cephalopods can dynamically camouflage by altering both skin texture and color to match their surroundings. Inspired by this capability, we present a cholesteric liquid crystal elastomer-liquid crystal elastomer (CLCE-LCE) bilayer…
The balance between stretching and bending deformations characterizes shape transitions of thin elastic sheets. While stretching dominates the mechanical response in tension, bending dominates in compression after an abrupt buckling…
The mechanics of a foam typically depends on the bubble geometry, topology, and the material at hand, be it metallic or polymeric, for example. While the foam energy functional for each bubble is typically minimization of surface area for a…
In active matter systems, deformable boundaries provide a mechanism to organize internal active stresses and perform work on the external environment. To study a minimal model of such a system, we perform particle-based simulations of an…
Bimorph films curl in response to temperature. The degree of curvature typically varies linearly with temperature and in proportion to the difference in thermal expansion of the individual layers. In many applications, such as controlling a…
Plasma membranes appear as deformable systems wherein molecules are free to move and diffuse giving rise to condensed microdomains (composed of ordered lipids, transmembrane proteins and cholesterol) surrounded by disordered lipid…
Force-induced reversible transformations between coiled and normal polymorphs of bacterial flagella have been observed in recent optical-tweezer experiment. We introduce a discrete elastic rod model with two competing helical states…
In this paper, we study an elastic bilayer plate composed of a nematic liquid crystal elastomer in the top layer and a nonlinearly elastic material in the bottom layer. While the bottom layer is assumed to be stress-free in the flat…
We investigate the out-of-plane shape morphing capability of single-material elastic sheets with architected cut patterns that result in arrays of tiles connected by flexible hinges. We demonstrate that a non-periodic cut pattern can cause…
Inspired by the cellular design of plant tissue, we present a new approach to make versatile, tough, highly water-swelling composites. We embed highly swelling hydrogel particles inside tough, water-permeable, elastomeric matrices. The…