Related papers: Spontaneous rolling on a 90 degree incline
Biological cells in soft materials can be modeled as anisotropic force contraction dipoles. The corresponding elastic interaction potentials are long-ranged ($\sim 1/r^3$ with distance $r$) and depend sensitively on elastic constants,…
In the recent years many research groups have studied slippery properties on lubricating fluid infused rough surfaces using hydrophobic substrates. These surfaces show excellent slippery behaviour for water and other liquids. Here we…
We consider a liquid drop placed on a smooth homogeneous solid substrate as it spreads from rest to its eventual equilibrium state. The problem is studied numerically in the framework of a model where the contact angle formed by the drop's…
Scales engagement can contribute significantly to nonlinear bending behavior of elastic substrates with rigid biomimetic scales. In this letter, we investigate the role of friction in modulating the nonlinearity that arises due to…
Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is a glassy polymer widely used in biomedical engineering, namely in microfluidics applications. However, PDMS is known to interact with hydrophobic chemicals. This interaction is exacerbated at the scale of…
Active gels play an important role in biology and in inspiring biomimetic active materials, due to their ability to change shape, size and create their own morphology; the relevant mechanics behind these changes is driven by…
Autonomous locomotion is a ubiquitous phenomenon in biology and in physics of active systems at microscopic scale. This includes prokaryotic, eukaryotic cells (crawling and swimming) and artificial swimmers. An outstanding feature is the…
We introduce a model of friction between two contacting (stationary or co-sliding) rough surfaces, each comprising a random ensemble of polydisperse hemispherical bumps. In the simplest version of the model, the bumps experience on contact…
We study the behavior of self-propelled nano- and micro-rods in three dimensions, confined between two parallel walls, by simulations and scaling arguments. Our simulations include thermal fluctuations and hydrodynamic interactions, which…
We study the dynamics of small droplets of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) silicone oil on a vertical, perfectly-wetting, silicon wafer. Interference videomicroscopy allows us to capture the dynamics of these droplets. We use droplets with a…
The classical Hertzian contact model establishes a monotonic correlation between contact force and area. Here, we showed that the interplay between local friction and structural instability can deliberately lead to unconventional contact…
A self-consistent model is developed to investigate attachment / detachment kinetics of two soft, deformable microspheres with irregular surface and coated with flexible binding ligands. The model highlights how the microscale binding…
Understanding the rolling and adhesion behavior of a cell on the vascular surface under viscous shear flow is important to better understand many biological processes. One of the important examples is the adhesion of the leukocytes onto…
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…
We study the rolling and sliding motion of droplets on a corrugated substrate by Molecular Dynamics simulations. Droplets are driven by an external body force (gravity) and we investigate the velocity profile and dissipation mechanisms in…
A soft, thin, elastomeric micro-cylinder is induced to roll on a solid substrate by releasing small quantity of a solvent. The solvent swells the cylinder asymmetrically at one side and evaporates out of it from where it is exposed to…
We experimentally investigate the dynamics of a sphere rolling down a granular slope by varying the initial velocity, slope angle, and sphere density. The results show that the sphere rolls down with constant deceleration while sinking into…
We present an investigation of the role of micropatterning on adhesion properties at soft deformable polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/ acrylic adhesive interfaces. Contrary to what has been observed for low aspect ratio rigid patterns, where the…
The process of self-morphing in curved surfaces found in nature, such as with the growth of flowers and leaves, has generated interest in the study of self-morphing bilayers, which has been used in many soft robots or switchers. However,…
Recent experiments have shown that liquid Leidenfrost drops levitated by their vapor above a flat hot surface can exhibit symmetry-breaking spontaneous dynamics (A. Bouillant et al., Nature Physics, 14 1188-1192, 2018). Motivated by these…