Related papers: Biofilms as poroelastic materials
We study the dynamics of a polymer that is pulled by a constant force through a viscoelastic medium. This is a model for a polymer being pulled through a cell by an external force, or for an active biopolymer moving due to a self generated…
Many living and physical systems such as cell aggregates, tissues or bacterial colonies behave as unconventional systems of particles that are strongly constrained by volume exclusion and shape interactions. Understanding how these…
Filamentous bio-materials such as fibrin or collagen networks exhibit an enormous stiffening of their elastic moduli upon large deformations. This pronounced nonlinear behavior stems from a significant separation between the stiffnesses…
Controlling bacterial surface adhesion and subsequent biofilm formation in fluid systems is crucial for the safety and efficacy of medical and industrial processes. Here, we theoretically examine the transport of bacteria close to surfaces,…
Plants and insects use slender conical structures to transport and collect small droplets, which are propelled along the conical structures due to capillary action. These droplets can deposit a fluid film during their motion, but despite…
Many biological materials such as cervical mucus and collagen gel possess a fibrous micro-structure. This micro-structure affects the emergent mechanical properties of the material, and hence the functional behaviour of the system. We…
When transported in confined geometries rigid fibers show interesting transport dynamics induced by friction with the top and bottom walls. Fiber flexibility causes an additional coupling between fiber deformation and transport and is…
Investigations of free-standing liquid films enjoy an increasing popularity due to their relevance for many fundamental and applied scientific problems. They constitute soap bubbles and foams, serve as membranes for gas transport or as…
Biological cells embedded in fibrous matrices have been observed to form inter-cellular bands of dense and aligned fibers, through which they mechanically interact over long distances. Such matrix-mediated cellular interactions have been…
Many biological materials must couple mechanical strength with the ability to rapidly self-assemble at a specific location. In particular, biomolecular condensates readily self-assemble via phase separation, but may also need to resist…
Active gels are a class of biologically-relevant material containing embedded agents that spontaneously generate forces acting on a sparse filament network. In vitro experiments of protein filaments and molecular motors have revealed a…
Understanding processes in porous media is fundamental to a broad spectrum of environmental, energy, and geoscience applications. These processes include multiphase fluid transport, interfacial dynamics, reactive transformations, and…
The large-scale collective behavior of biological systems can be characterized by macroscopic transport, which arises from the non-equilibrium microscopic interactions among individual constituents. A prominent example is the formation of…
Bacterial colonies are a well-known example of living active matter, exhibiting collective behaviors such as nematic alignment and collective motion that play an important role in the spread of microbial infections. While the underlying…
Unlike most synthetic materials, biological materials often stiffen as they are deformed. This nonlinear elastic response, critical for the physiological function of some tissues, has been documented since at least the 19th century, but the…
We present pore-scale simulations of two-phase flows in a reconstructed fibrous porous layer. The three dimensional microstructure of the material, a fuel cell gas diffusion layer, is acquired via X-ray computed tomography and used as input…
Anaerobic processes (e.g., methanogenesis and fermentation) largely contribute to element cycling and natural contaminant attenuation/mobilization, even in well-oxygenated porous environments, such as shallow aquifers. This paradox is…
We investigate how a filter media microstructure influences filtration performance. We derive a theory that generalizes classical multiscale models for regular structures to account for filter media with more realistic microstructures,…
The macroscopic phenomenon of filtration is the separation between suspended and liquid phases and it takes place in natural environments (e.g. groundwater, soil, hyporheic zone) and industrial systems (e.g. filtration plants,…
Bacterial biofilms underlie many persistent infections, posing major hurdles in antibiotic treatment. Here, we design and demonstrate tug-of-war optical tweezers that can facilitate assessment of cell-cell adhesion - a key contributing…