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A body immersed in a nematic liquid crystal disturbs the fluid's preferred molecular configuration and increases its stored elastic energy. In an active nematic, the fluid components also generate a stress in the bulk fluid. By introducing…

Active nematics are fluids in which the components have nematic symmetry and are driven out of equilibrium due to the microscopic generation of an active stress. When the active stress is high, it drives flows in the nematic and can lead to…

Many active materials and biological systems are driven far from equilibrium by embedded agents that spontaneously generate forces and distort the surrounding material. Probing and characterizing these athermal fluctuations is essential for…

Several experiments have demonstrated the existence of an electro-mechanical effect in many biological tissues and hydrogels, and its actual influence on growth, migration, and pattern formation. Here, to model these interactions and…

We study the dynamics of topological defects in continuum theories governed by a free energy minimization principle, building on our recently developed framework [Romano J, Mahault B and Golestanian R 2023 J. Stat. Mech.: Theory Exp.…

Knotted proteins embed a physical (i.e., open) knot within their native structures. For decades, significant effort has been devoted to elucidating the functional role of knots in proteins, yet no consensus has been reached. Here, using…

Prestress in amorphous solids bears the memory of their formation, and plays a profound role in their mechanical properties, from stiffening or softening elastic moduli to shifting frequencies of vibrational modes, as well as directing…

Incremental stiffness characterizes the variation of a material's force response to a small deformation change. Typically materials have an incremental stiffness that is fixed and positive, but recent technologies, such as super-lenses, low…

Spatially confined rigid membranes reorganize their morphology in response to the imposed constraints. A crumpled elastic sheet presents a complex pattern of random folds focusing the deformation energy while compressing a membrane resting…

This paper investigates the stress and displacement distribution in a two-dimensional elastic hollow disk subjected to distributed diametric loading, extending our previous analysis of concentrated loading [Okamura et al. Strength Mater.…

Topological defects are ubiquitous on surfaces with orientational order fields. Here, we study equilibrium states generated by the feedback between geometry and nematic order on fluid membranes with an integer topological defect. When the…

Cells and tissues change shape both to carry out their function and during pathology. In most cases, these deformations are driven from within the systems themselves. This is permitted by a range of molecular actors, such as active…

Linear defects such as dislocations and disclinations in ordered materials attract foreign particles since they replace strong elastic distortions at the defect cores. In this work, we explore the behavior of isotropic droplets nucleating…

Topology optimization is an important basis for the design of components. Here, the optimal structure is found within a design space subject to boundary conditions. Thereby, the specific material law has a strong impact on the final design.…

The quantification of the stiffness of tubular biological structures is often obtained, both in vivo and in vitro, as the slope of total transmural hoop stress plotted against hoop strain. Total hoop stress is typically estimated using the…

Elastomers that can sustain large reversible strain are essential components for stretchable electronics. The stretchability and mechanical robustness of unfilled elastomers can be enhanced by introducing easier-to-break cross-links, e.g.…

Upon loading, atomic networks can feature delayed viscoplastic relaxation. However, the effect of composition and structure on such a relaxation remains poorly understood. Herein, relying on accelerated molecular dynamics simulations and…

Crystallography typically studies collections of point particles whose interaction forces are the gradient of a potential. Lifting this assumption generically gives rise in the continuum limit to a form of elasticity with additional moduli…

Pull-in (or electro-mechanical) instability occurs when a drastic decrease in the thickness of a dielectric elastomer results in electrical breakdown, which limits the applications of dielectric devices. Here we derive the criteria for…

We investigate the influence of curvature and topology on crystalline wrinkling patterns in generic elastic bilayers. Our numerical analysis predicts that the total number of defects created by adiabatic compression exhibits universal…