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How internal forces are transduced into motion through soft, fluid membranes remains a fundamental question in the study of active systems. To investigate this coupling, we develop a minimal system consisting of a single ferromagnetic…
Recent theoretical and experimental investigations have revealed that flapping compliant membrane wings can significantly enhance propulsive performance (e.g. Tzezana and Breuer, 2019, J. Fluid Mech., 862, 871-888) and energy harvesting…
When an object impacts the free surface of a liquid, it ejects a splash curtain upwards and creates an air cavity below the free surface. As the object descends into the liquid, the air cavity eventually closes under the action of…
We investigate the dynamics of membranes that are held by freely-rotating tethers in fluid flows. The tethered boundary condition allows periodic and chaotic oscillatory motions for certain parameter values. We characterize the oscillations…
The mechanics of crawling cells on a substrate is investigated by using a minimal model that satisfies the force-free condition. A cell is described by two subcellular elements connected by a linear actuator that changes the length of the…
One of the most promising applications in nanoscience is the design of new materials to improve water permeability and selectivity of nanoporous membranes. Understanding the molecular architecture behind these fascinating structures and how…
How fish modulate their fin stiffness during locomotive manoeuvres remains unknown. We show that changing the fin's curvature modulates its stiffness. Modelling the fin as bendable bony rays held together by a membrane, we deduce that fin…
We perform a laboratory-scale experiment of submarine avalanches on a rough inclined plane. A sediment layer is prepared and thereafter tilted up to an angle lower than the spontaneous avalanche angle. The sediment is scrapped until an…
Snap-buckling is a rapid shape transition in slender structures, appearing as a fundamental switching mechanism of natural and man-made systems. Boundary conditions of structures are crucial to predict and control their snap-buckling…
The aim of this work is to study the dynamics and stability of soft shape-morphing configurations and specifically the modes of interaction between the front and rear airfoil segments. Initially we present several steady-state solutions,…
Lipid membranes form the barrier between the inside and outside of cells and many of their subcompartments. As such, they bind to a wide variety of nano- and micrometer sized objects and, in the presence of strong adhesive forces, strongly…
Recent experiments by Kantsler et. al. (2007) have shown that the relaxational dynamics of a vesicle in external elongation flow is accompanied by the formation of wrinkles on a membrane. Motivated by these experiments we present a theory…
The use of tank-treading as a means of propulsion for microswimmers in viscous shear flows is taken into exam. We discuss the possibility that a vesicle be able to control the drift in an external shear flow, by varying locally the bending…
Bistable shells can reversibly change between two stable configurations with very little energetic input. Understanding what governs the shape and snap-through criteria of these structures is crucial for designing devices that utilize…
Membrane pores are implicated in several critical functions, including cell fusion and the transport of signaling molecules for intercellular communication. However, these structural features are often difficult to probe directly. Droplet…
A phenomenological Landau elasticity for the shape, dilation, and lipid-tilt of bilayer membranes is developed. The shape mode couples with the sum of the monolayers' tilt, while the dilation mode couples with the difference of the…
We study the dynamics of orientational phase ordering in fluid membranes. Through numerical simulation we find an unusually slow coarsening of topological texture, which is limited by subdiffusive propagation of membrane curvature. The…
In this paper, we investigate the hydrodynamic characteristics of harbor seal locomotion, focusing on the role of hind flippers in thrust generation and wake dynamics. Through three-dimensional numerical simulations using an immersed…
Curvature and mechanics are intimately connected for thin materials, and this coupling between geometry and physical properties is readily seen in folded structures from intestinal villi and pollen grains, to wrinkled membranes and…
The statistical physics and dynamics of double supported bilayers are studied theoretically. The main goal in designing double supported lipid bilayers is to obtain model systems of biomembranes: the upper bilayer is meant to be almost…