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Colloidal gels constitute an important class of materials found in many contexts and with a wide range of applications. Yet as matter far from equilibrium, gels exhibit a variety of time-dependent behaviours, which can be perplexing, such…
A fundamental challenge for disordered solids is predicting macroscopic yield from the microscopic arrangements of constituent particles. Yield is accompanied by a sudden and large increase in energy dissipation due to the onset of plastic…
We investigate the nonequilibrium behavior of dense, plastic-crystalline suspensions of mildly anisotropic colloidal hard dumbbells under the action of an oscillatory shear field by employing Brownian dynamics computer simulations. In…
Granular flows during a shear-induced mixing process are studied using Discrete Element Methods. The aim is to understand the underlying elementary mechanisms of transition from unmixed to mixed phases for a granular material featuring a…
Soft, amorphous solids such as tissues, foams, and emulsions are composed of deformable particles. However, the effect of single-particle deformability on the collective behavior of soft solids is still poorly understood. We perform…
We investigate the evolution of multi-scale mechanical properties towards the macroscopic mechanical instability in frictional granular media under multiaxial compressive loading. Spatial correlations of shear stress redistribution…
Shear banding and stick-slip instabilities have been long observed in sheared granular materials. Yet, their microscopic underpinnings, interdependencies and variability under different loading conditions have not been fully explored. Here,…
Packings of macroscopic granular chains capture some of the essential aspects of molecular polymer systems and have been suggested as a paradigm to understand the physics on a molecular scale. However, here we demonstrate that the…
Amorphous materials as diverse as foams, emulsions, colloidal suspensions and granular media can jam into a rigid, disordered state where they withstand finite shear stresses before yielding. Here we review the current understanding of the…
This paper examines the mechanical response of flexible fiber packings subject to triaxial compression. Short fibers yield in a manner similar to typical granular materials in which the deviatoric stress remains nearly constant with…
Although jammed packings of soft spheres exist in potential energy landscapes with a vast number of minima, when subjected to cyclic shear they may revisit the same configurations repeatedly. Simple hysteretic spin models, in which particle…
The flow of dense suspensions, glasses, and granular materials is heavily influenced by frictional interactions between constituent particles. However, neither hydrodynamics nor friction has successfully explained the full range of flow…
The yielding of foams, concentrated emulsions, pastes and other soft materials under applied strain is often characterized by measuring the complex shear modulus as a function of strain amplitude at low frequency. Results obtained for…
It is well known that jammed soft materials will flow if sheared above their yield stress - think mayonnaise spread on bread - but a complete microscopic description of this seemingly sim- ple process has yet to emerge. What remains elusive…
We examine microstructural and mechanical changes which occur during oscillatory shear flow and reformation after flow cessation of an intermediate volume fraction colloidal gel using rheometry and Brownian Dynamics (BD) simulations. A…
Softer means stickier for solid adhesives, because material compliance facilitates close contact between non-conformal surfaces. Recent discoveries have revealed that soft materials can exhibit a rich array of new physics arising from…
The nature of yield in amorphous materials under stress has yet to be fully elucidated. In particular, understanding how microscopic rearrangement gives rise to macroscopic structural and rheological signatures in disordered systems is…
The shear response of soft solids can be modeled with linear elasticity, provided the forcing is slow and weak. Both of these approximations must break down when the material loses rigidity, such as in foams and emulsions at their…
A material's response to small but finite deformations can reveal the roots of its response to much larger deformations. Here, we identify commonalities in the responses of 2D soft jammed solids with different amounts of disorder. We…
The slow flow of amorphous solids exhibits striking heterogeneities: swift localised particle rearrangements take place in the midst of a more or less homogeneously deforming medium. Recently, experimental as well as numerical work has…