Related papers: Elasticity tunes mechanical stress localization ar…
We investigate the finite bending and the associated bending instability of an incompressible dielectric slab subject to a combination of applied voltage and axial compression, using nonlinear electro-elasticity theory and its incremental…
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…
Athermal models of disordered fibrous networks are highly useful for studying the mechanics of elastic networks composed of stiff biopolymers. The underlying network architecture is a key aspect that can affect the elastic properties of…
Many biological and engineering materials have nonperiodic microstructures for which classical periodic homogenization results do not apply. Certain nonperiodic microstructures may be approximated by locally periodic microstructures for…
Hydrogels of semiflexible biopolymers such as collagen have been shown to contract axially under shear strain, in contrast to the axial dilation observed for most elastic materials. Recent work has shown that this behavior can be understood…
The antiplane strain Green's functions for an applied concentrated force and moment are obtained for Cosserat elastic solids with extreme anisotropy, which can be tailored to bring the material in a state close to an instability threshold…
In development and homeostasis, multi-cellular systems exhibit spatial and temporal heterogeneity in their biochemical and mechanical properties. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how spatiotemporally heterogeneous forces affect the…
Plasticity is inherent to many engineering materials such as metals. While it can degrade the load-carrying capacity of structures via material yielding, it can also protect structures through plastic energy dissipation. To fully harness…
The rigidity of elastic networks depends sensitively on their internal connectivity and the nature of the interactions between constituents. Particles interacting via central forces undergo a zero-temperature rigidity-percolation transition…
We characterise the particlelike kinematics of charge-carrying topological defects in nematic media via a geometric field theory. This differs from the theory of electromagnetism, with which it is often compared, due to the absence of…
Using shear wave elastography, we measure the changes in the wave speed with the stress produced by a striated muscle during isometric voluntary contraction. To isolate the behaviour of an individual muscle from complementary or…
Nonequilibrium active polymers provide a minimal framework to investigate biopolymers such as DNA and chromatin under the action of molecular motors. Here we study active ring polymers with controlled topology and show that knot type…
Epithelial tissues are continuously exposed to cyclic stretch. Physiological stretching has been found to regulate soft tissue function at the molecular, cellular, and tissue scales, allowing tissues to preserve their homeostasis and adapt…
The stress-strain relationship of biological soft tissues affected by Marfan's syndrome is believed to be non-convex. More specifically, Haughton and Merodio recently proposed a strain-energy density leading to localized strain softening,…
Numerically simulating deformations in thin elastic sheets is a challenging problem in computational mechanics due to destabilizing compressive stresses that result in wrinkling. Determining the location, structure, and evolution of…
Voids can limit the life of engineering components. This motivates us to understand local plasticity around voids in a nickel base superalloy combining experiments and simulations. Single crystal samples were deformed in tension with…
Passive elastic elements can contribute to stability, energetic efficiency, and impact absorption in both biological and robotic systems. They also add dynamical complexity which makes them more challenging to model and control. The impact…
The behaviour of elastic structures undergoing large deformations is the result of the competition between confining conditions, self-avoidance and elasticity. This combination of multiple phenomena creates a geometrical frustration that…
Convergent extension of epithelial tissue is a key motif of animal morphogenesis. On a coarse scale, cell motion resembles laminar fluid flow; yet in contrast to a fluid, epithelial cells adhere to each other and maintain the tissue layer…
When sheared, granular media experience localized plastic events known as shear transformations which generate anisotropic internal stresses. Under strong confining pressure, the response of granular media to local force multipoles is…