Related papers: Tuning load redistribution and damage near heterog…
Extreme localization of damage in conventional brittle materials is the source of a host of undesirable effects. We show how artificially engineered metamaterials with all brittle constituents can be designed to ensure that every breakable…
Nanoscale electronics and novel fabrication technologies bear unique opportunities for self-assembling multi-billion component systems in a largely random manner, which would likely lower fabrication costs significantly compared to a…
Entangled networks are ubiquitous in tissues, polymers, and fabrics. However, their mechanics remain insufficiently understood due to the complexity of the topological constraints at the network level. Here, we develop a mathematical…
Topologically interlocked structures are architectured by fitting together blocks that are constrained geometrically through contact and friction by their neighboring blocks. As long as the frictional strength is nowhere exceeded, the…
This contribution presents a diffuse framework for modeling cracks in heterogeneous media. Interfaces are depicted by static phase-fields. This concept allows the use of non-conforming meshes. Another phase-field is used to describe the…
Tree frogs are able take advantage of an interconnected network of epithelial cells in their toe pads to modulate their adhesion to surfaces under dry, wet, and flooded environments. It has been hypothesized that these interconnected…
Internally generated active stresses drive soft materials into architectures inaccessible to thermal self-assembly. We use a microtubule-based active fluid to assemble and irreversibly restructure actin-fascin networks. Subsequently, we…
Many biological tissues feature a heterogeneous network of fibers whose tensile and bending rigidity contribute substantially to these tissues' elastic properties. Rigidity percolation has emerged as a important paradigm for relating these…
The relevant parameters at the microstructure scale that govern the macroscopic toughness of disordered brittle materials are investigated theoretically. We focus on planar crack propagation and describe the front evolution as the…
2D materials offer a large variety of optical properties, from transparency to plasmonic excitation. They can be structured and combined to form heterostructures that expand the realm of possibility to manipulate light interactions at the…
Interfaces such as grain boundaries in polycrystalline as well as heterointerfaces in multiphase solids are ubiquitous in materials science and engineering. Far from being featureless dividing surfaces between neighboring crystals,…
We consider the quasi-static propagation of a Mode III crack along the interface in a bimaterial plane containing a finite array of small line defects (microcracks and rigid line inclusions). The microdefects are arranged to form a channel…
Self-assembly in the laboratory can now yield `information-rich' nanostructures in which each component is of a distinct type and has a defined spatial position. Ensuring the thermodynamic stability of such structures requires…
The modeling of crack propagation in a heterogeneous material using a phase field model is studied numerically in a simple test case: the crack meets a wedge of higher fracture energy. It is shown that when the crack cannot enter the wedge,…
Fracture is a fundamental mechanism of materials failure. Propagating cracks can exhibit a rich dynamical behavior controlled by a subtle interplay between microscopic failure processes in the crack tip region and macroscopic elasticity. We…
Exotic behaviour of mechanical metamaterials often relies on an internal transformation of the underlying microstructure triggered by its local instabilities, rearrangements, and rotations. Depending on the presence and magnitude of such a…
Besides the chemical constituents, it is the lattice geometry that controls the most important material properties. In many interesting compounds, the arrangement of elements leads to pronounced anisotropies, which reflect into a varying…
A major challenge in flow through porous media is to better understand the link between microstructure and macroscale flow and transport. For idealised microstructures, the mathematical framework of homogenisation theory can be used for…
The transmission grid is often comprised of several control areas that are connected by multiple tie lines in a mesh structure for reliability. It is also well-known that line failures can propagate non-locally and redundancy can exacerbate…
The mechanical response of biological soft tissues is influenced by wall heterogeneity, including spatial variations in wall thickness. Traditional models for homogeneous soft tissues under uniaxial loading predict higher stretch and stress…