Related papers: Confinement controls the creep rate in soft granul…
The mechanical properties of crystalline materials can be substantially modified under confinement. Such modified macroscopic properties are usually governed by the altered microstructures and internal stress fields. Here, we use a parallel…
Using sedimentation to obtain precisely controlled packings of noncohesive spheres, we find that the volume fraction $\phi_{\rm RLP}$ of the loosest mechanically stable packing is in an operational sense well defined by a limit process.…
A confined incompressible elastic film does not deform uniformly when subjected to adhesive interfacial stresses but with undulations which have a characteristic wavelength scaling linearly with the thickness of the film. In the classical…
Grain segregation occurs under various conditions, such as vibration, shear and mixing. In the gravity-driven shear flow, size segregation is triggered by the percolation of small particles through the opened voids (kinetic sieving), and…
Dynamics of a single vesicle under shear flow between two parallel plates is studied using two-dimensional lattice-Boltzmann simulations. We first present how we adapted the lattice-Boltzmann method to simulate vesicle dynamics, using an…
By means of mesoscopic numerical simulations of a model soft-glassy material, we investigate the role of boundary roughness on the flow behaviour of the material, probing the bulk/wall and global/local rheologies. We show that the roughness…
Many soft jammed materials, such as pastes, gels, concentrated emulsions, and suspensions, possess a threshold stress, known as yield stress, that must be exceeded to cause permanent deformation or flow. In rheology, the term plastic flow…
We study the combined effects of nonlocal elasticity and confinement induced ordering on the dynamics of thermomolecular pressure gradient driven premelted films bound by an elastic membrane. The confinement induced ordering is modeled…
We present a multiscale simulation algorithm for amorphous materials, which we illustrate and validate in a canonical case of dense granular flow. Our algorithm is based on the recently proposed Spot Model, where particles in a dense random…
Hydrogels have had a profound impact in the fields of tissue engineering, drug delivery, and materials science as a whole. Due to the network architecture of these materials, imbibement with water often results in uniform swelling and…
The properties of confined granular flows are studied through discrete numerical simulations. Two types of flows with different boundaries are compared: (i) gravity-driven flows topped with a free surface and over a base where erosion…
We develop a model to describe the properties of random assemblies of polydisperse hard spheres. We show that the key features to describe the system are (i) the dependence between the free volume of a sphere and the various coordination…
A flexible membrane deforming its shape in time can self-propel in a viscous fluid. Alternatively, if the membrane is anchored, its deformation will lead to fluid transport. Past work in this area focused on situations where the deformation…
When submitted to a constant mechanical load, many amorphous solids display power law creep followed by fluidization. A fundamental understanding of these processes is still far from being achieved. Here, we characterize creep and…
The viscosity of suspensions of large ($\geq10{\mu m}$) particles diverges at high solid fractions due to proliferation of frictional particle contacts. Reducing friction, to allow or improve flowability, is usually achieved by tuning the…
We present an experimental study of the statistical properties of millimeter-size spheres floating on the surface of a turbulent flow. The flow is generated in a layer of liquid metal by an electromagnetic forcing. By using two magnet…
Elastic properties and internal states of isotropic sphere packings are studied by numerical simulations. Several numerical protocols to assemble dense configurations are compared. One, which imitates experiments with lubricated contacts,…
The bistable states and separation hysteresis in curved compression ramp (CCR) flows, and the corresponding aerothermal characteristics (including wall friction, pressure and heat flux), are studied numerically and theoretically. Direct…
We perform drainage experiments of a linear alkane fluid (n-hexadecane) down to molecular thicknesses, and focus on the role played by the confinement rate. We show that molecular layering is strongly influenced by the velocity at which the…
The mechanical strength and flow of granular materials can depend strongly on the shapes of individual grains. We report quantitative results obtained from photoelasticimetry experiments on locally loaded, quasi-two-dimensional granular…