Related papers: Surface instabilities generated by a slider pulled…
The buckling of elastic bodies is a common phenomenon in the mechanics of solids. Wrinkling of membranes can often be interpreted as buckling under constraints that prohibit large amplitude deformation. We present a combination of analytic…
Splashing occurs when a liquid drop hits a dry solid surface at high velocity. This paper reports experimental studies of how the splash depends on the roughness and the texture of the surfaces as well as the viscosity of the liquid. For…
We study the snapping instability of a spherical elastic shell induced by a viscous flow, the umbrella flipping problem when life is at low Reynolds numbers. We combine precision desktop-scale experiments, fluid-structure simulations, shell…
A theoretical and experimental study of the spin-over mode induced by the elliptical instability of a flow contained in a slightly deformed rotating spherical shell is presented. This geometrical configuration mimics the liquid rotating…
We investigate the behavior of the slip length in Newtonian liquids subject to planar shear bounded by substrates with mixed boundary conditions. The upper wall, consisting of a homogenous surface of finite or vanishing slip, moves at a…
The swimming of cells, far from any boundary, can arise in the absence of long-range liquid-crystalline order within the cytoplasm, but simple models of this effect are lacking. Here we present a two-dimensional model of droplet…
In the first part of the article using a direct calculation two-dimensional motion of a particle sliding on an inclined plane is investigated for general values of friction coefficient ($\mu$). A parametric equation for the trajectory of…
We discover an instability mechanism in suspensions of self-propelled particles that does not involve active stress. Instead, it is driven by a subtle interplay of inertia, swimmer motility, and concentration fluctuations, through a crucial…
In this paper we present an experimental study of the long surface wave instability that can develop when a granular material flows down a rough inclined plane. The threshold and the dispersion relation of the instability are precisely…
We revisit here the stability of a deformable interface that separates a fully-developed turbulent gas flow from a thin layer of laminar liquid. Unlike previous work, the turbulent base state velocity profile proposed here requires only a…
When a liquid slams into a solid, the intermediate gas is squeezed out at a speed that diverges when approaching the moment of impact. Although there is mounting experimental evidence that instabilities form on the liquid interface during…
A pinned-free beam in axial fluid flow, subjected to feedback-based actuation at the pinned end, is investigated. The actuation may be a moment or a prescribed angle and it is proportional to the state (curvature, slope, or displacement) of…
We study the drag force on discrete objects with circular cross section moving slowly through a spherical granular medium. Variations in the geometry of the dragged object change the drag force only by a small fraction relative to shape…
Vortex ripples in sand are studied experimentally in a one-dimensional setup with periodic boundary conditions. The nonlinear evolution, far from the onset of instability, is analyzed in the framework of a simple model developed for…
We explore the rotational stability of hovering flight. Our model is motivated by an experimental pyramid-shaped object and a computational lambda-shaped analog hovering passively in oscillating airflows; both systems have been shown to…
Deformations of heavy elastic cylinders with their axis in the direction of earth's gravity field are investigated. The specimens, made of polyacrylamide hydrogels, are attached from their top circular cross section to a rigid plate. An…
In the framework of a Frenkel-Kontorova-like model, we address the robustness of the superlubricity phenomenon in an edge-driven system at large scales, highlighting the dynamical mechanisms leading to its failure due to the slider…
Vesicles are important surrogate structures made up of multiple phospholipids and cholesterol distributed in the form of a lipid bilayer. Tubular vesicles can undergo pearling i.e., formation of beads on the liquid thread akin to the…
This work investigates the morphological stability of a soft body composed of two heavy elastic layers, attached to a rigid surface and subjected only to the bulk gravity force. Using theoretical and computational tools, we characterize the…
The Plateau-Rayleigh instability of a liquid column underlies a variety of fascinating phenomena that can be observed in everyday life. In contrast to the case of a free liquid cylinder, describing the evolution of a liquid layer on a solid…