Related papers: Spontaneous rolling on a 90 degree incline
Snake robots are inspired by the ability of biological snakes to move over rock, grass, leaves, soil, up trees, along pavement and more. Their ability to move in multiple distinct environments is due to their legless locomotion strategy,…
In nature, a variety of limbless locomotion patterns flourish from the small or basic life form (Escherichia coli, the amoeba, etc.) to the large or intelligent creatures (e.g., slugs, starfishes, earthworms, octopuses, jellyfishes, and…
Twisted van der Waals bilayers provide an ideal platform to study the electron correlation in solids. Of particular interest is the 30 degree twisted bilayer honeycomb lattice system, which possesses an incommensurate moire pattern and…
We report on the frictional behaviour of thin poly(dimethylacrylamide) (PDMA) hydrogels films grafted on glass substrates in sliding contact with a glass spherical probe. Friction experiments are carried out at various velocities and…
Soft robotics has emerged as a promising technology that holds great potential for various application areas. This is due to soft materials unique properties, including flexibility, safety, and shock absorption, among others. Despite many…
A rigid cylinder placed on a soft gel deforms its surface. When multiple cylinders are placed on the surface, they interact with each other via the topography of the deformed gel which serves as an energy landscape; as they move, the…
True contact between randomly rough solids consists of myriad individual micro-junctions. While their total area controls the adhesive friction force of the interface, other macroscopic features, including viscoelastic friction, wear,…
The recent discovery of electro-active polymers has shown great promises in the field of soft robotics, and was logically followed by experimental, numerical and theoretical developments. Most of these studies were concerned with systems…
Contact involving soft materials often combines dry adhesion, sliding friction, and large deformations. At the local level, these three aspects are rarely captured simultaneously, but included in the theoretical models by Mergel et al.…
Sliding friction between two dry surfaces is reasonably described by the speed-independent Amonton-Coulomb friction force law. However, there are many situations where the frictional contact points between two surfaces are "active" and may…
We consider the motion of a fluid-immersed negatively buoyant particle in the vicinity of a thin compressible elastic wall, a situation that arises in a variety of technological and natural settings. We use scaling arguments to establish…
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 morphology of an elastic strip subject to vertical compressive stress on a frictional rigid substrate is investigated by a combination of theory and experiment. We find a rich variety of morphologies, which -when the bending elasticity…
We report on an experimental investigation of the interplay between friction, contact geometry and finite strains for smooth frictional contacts between rigid spherical glass probes and flat silicone substrates. Using both bulk and layered…
The effects of viscoelasticity have been shown to manifest themselves via symmetry breaking. In this investigation, we show a novel phenomenon that arises from this idea. We observe that when a dense sphere is rotated near a wall (the…
The mechanosensitivity of cells, which determines how they are able to respond to mechanical signals received from their environment, is crucial for the functioning of all biological systems. In experiments, cells placed on cyclically…
Collections of simple, self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit complex, emergent dynamical behavior, with promising applications in microrobotics. When confined within a deformable vesicle, self-propelled rods cluster and align,…
Wrinkling patterns at the metallized surface of thin polymer films are shown to be sensitive to the sticky or slippery character of the polymer/substrate interface (titanium coating, polystyrene film and coated silicon substrate). Selective…
The present paper reports a novel behavior involving regular polygons with n sides and filled to varying degrees with granular materials. These are comprised of a set of hollow polygons produced on a 3D printer, and a single larger hollow…
In this work, we analyse the stick-slip motion of a soft elastomeric block on a smooth, hard surface under the application of shear, which is induced by a puller moving at a steady velocity. The frictional stress is generated by make-break…