Related papers: Tensegrity-Inspired Polymer Films: Progressive Ben…
Shatterproof polymer films are widely for windows used because they can be easily installed on existing glass windows to improve safety. Applying them to glass plates has been reported to not only prevent fragments from scattering but also…
The apparently intractable shape of a fold in a compressed elastic film lying on a fluid substrate is found to have an exact solution. Such systems buckle at a nonzero wavevector set by the bending stiffness of the film and the weight of…
In this study, thin elastic films supported on a rigid substrate are brought into contact with a spherical glass indenter. Upon contact, adhesive fingers emerge at the periphery of the contact patch with a characteristic wavelength. Elastic…
We discuss mechanical buckling instabilities of a rigid film under compression interacting repulsively with a substrate through a thin fluid layer. The buckling occurs at a characteristic wavelength that increases as the 1/4th power of the…
Based on experiments and 3-D simulations, we show that a soft elastic film during adhesion and debonding from a rigid flat surface undergoes morphological transitions to pillars, labyrinths and cavities, all of which have the same lateral…
Many mechanical structures, both engineered and biological, combine heavy rigid elements such as bones and beams with lightweight flexible ones such as cables and membranes. These are referred to as tensegrities, reflecting that cables can…
Electrically conducting polymers with mechanical adaptability are essential for flexible electronics, yet most suffer structural degradation under rapid deformation. In this study, multiscale coarse-grained (MSCG) simulations are used to…
While all materials reduce their intrinsic volume under hydrostatic (uniform) compression, a select few actually \emph{expand} along one or more directions during this process of densification. As rare as it is counterintuitive, such…
We simulate entangled linear polymers in free-standing thin film geometries where the confining dimension is on the same scale or smaller than the bulk chain dimensions. We compare both film-averaged and layer-resolved, spatially…
Periodic wrinkling of a rigid capping layer on a deformable substrate provides a useful method for templating surface topography for a variety of novel applications. Many experiments have studied wrinkle formation during the compression of…
Natural ligaments are soft connective tissues that must simultaneously provide high stretchability to enable dexterous flexibility and high stiffness to protect the musculoskeletal system. These two functions cannot be independently tuned…
We present the experimental studies of highly strained soft bidisperse granular systems made of hyperelastic and plastic particles. We explore the behavior of granular matter deep in the jammed state from local field measurement from the…
The structure of polymers at solid interfaces evolves over time, but the corresponding changes in their rheological properties remain poorly understood. Here, using a home-built quartz tuning fork atomic force microscope-based…
We study the elasticity of fibrous materials composed of generalized stiff polymers. It is shown that in contrast to cellular foam-like structures affine strain fields are generically unstable. Instead, a subtle interplay between the…
Stress-induced shaping, which deforms thin substrates utilizing stressed surface coatings, has enabled and enhanced a host of applications in past decades. Owing to the touchless fabrication process compatible with modern planar technology,…
As 2D materials such as graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides, and 2D polymers become more prevalent, solution processing and colloidal-state properties are being exploited to create advanced and functional materials. However, our…
We calculate the distribution of the current density $j$ in superconducting films along the direction of an external field applied perpendicular to the film plane. Our analysis reveals that in the presence of bulk pinning $j$ is…
We present a novel buckling instability relevant to membrane budding in eukaryotic cells. In this mechanism, curved filaments bind to a lipid bilayer without changing its intrinsic curvature. As more and more filaments adsorb, newly added…
The viscoelastic behavior of liquid polymers changes depending on the microstructure of the polymer chains. To investigate the unsteady structural changes induced by polymer chain morphology under stress, we develop a simple rheo-optical…
Tensegrity structures are frameworks in a stable self-equilibrated prestress state that have been applied in various fields in science and engineering. Research into tensegrity structures has resulted in reliable techniques for their form…