Related papers: Mechanics of poking a cyst
The objective of this thesis is to advance the understanding of complex physical phenomena through the lens of statistical physics. Specifically, it addresses two fundamental questions: What types of interactions can induce buckling of…
Connecting cell behavior to tissue shape and mechanics is a key challenge in the physics of morphogenesis. Cytoskeletal turnover precludes a fixed reference state, and tensions are actively generated independently of strain; so conventional…
We document a sequence of bifurcations and elastic patterns in sheared bent sheets of intermediate aspect ratio. The sheets undergo inversion of curvature through the passage of localized features, often in S-shaped pairs. Nested…
Small mechanical forces play important functional roles in many crucial cellular processes, including in the dynamical behavior of the cytoskeleton and in the regulation of osmotic pressure through membrane-bound proteins. Molecular…
An indentation testing method, which utilizes lateral contact of a long cylindrical indenter, is developed for a thin transversely isotropic incompressible elastic film deposited onto a smooth rigid substrate. It is assumed that the…
We study theoretically and numerically the elastic properties of hard sphere glasses, and provide a real-space description of their mechanical stability. In contrast to repulsive particles at zero-temperature, we argue that the presence of…
The packing of elastic bodies has emerged as a paradigm for the study of macroscopic disordered systems. However, progress is hampered by the lack of controlled experiments. Here we consider a model experiment for the isotropic…
We investigate both numerically and analytically the effect of strong disorder on the large scale properties of the hyperbolic equations for stresses proposed in \protect\cite{bcc,wcc}. The physical mechanism that we model is the local…
Understanding the mechanical instabilities of two-dimensional membranes has strong connection to the subjects of structure instabilities, morphology control and materials failures. In this work, we investigate the plastic mechanism…
Static packings of frictional rigid particles are investigated by means of discrete element simulations. We explore the ensemble of allowed force realizations in the space of contact forces for a given packing structure. We estimate the…
We present a simple method for accessing the elastic properties of microscopic deformable particles. This method is based on measuring the pressure-induced deformation of soft particles as they are forced through a tapered glass…
We propose bending energies for isotropic elastic plates and shells. For a plate, we define and employ a surface tensor that symmetrically couples stretch and curvature such that any elastic energy density constructed from its invariants is…
Spatially confined rigid membranes reorganize their morphology in response to the imposed constraints. A crumpled elastic sheet presents a complex pattern of random folds focusing the deformation energy while compressing a membrane resting…
Nonlinear elastic responses of short and stiff polyelectrolytes are investigated by dynamic simulations on a single molecule level. When a polyelectrolyte condensate undergoes a mechanical unfolding, two types of force-extension curves,…
We study a model inspired by the pinball machine involving chaotic scattering of particles on hard disks with inelasticity. This system exhibits sensitivity not only on the initial conditions of the scattering point particle but also on the…
Crystallography typically studies collections of point particles whose interaction forces are the gradient of a potential. Lifting this assumption generically gives rise in the continuum limit to a form of elasticity with additional moduli…
We study the indentation of a thin elastic film floating at the surface of a liquid. We focus on the onset of radial wrinkles at a threshold indentation depth and the evolution of the wrinkle pattern as indentation progresses far beyond…
We report a surface instability observed during the extrusion of extremely soft elastic solids in confined geometries. Due to their unique rheological properties, these soft solids can migrate through narrow gaps by continuously everting…
It is shown here that fracture after a brief plastic strain, typically of a few percents, is a necessary consequence of the polycrystalline nature of the materials. The polycrystal undergoing plastic deformation is modeled as a flowing…
Growth-elasticity is a powerful model framework for understanding complex shape development in soft biological tissues. At each instant, by mapping how continuum building blocks have grown geometrically and how they respond elastically to…