Related papers: Spontaneous rolling on a 90 degree incline
Terrestrial locomotion requires generating appropriate ground reaction forces which depend on substrate geometry and physical properties. The richness of positions and orientations of terrain features in the 3-D world gives limbless animals…
Recently, a simple and elegant "dimple" model was introduced by McMeeking et al. (Adv Eng Mat 12(5), 389-397, 2010) to show a mechanism for a bistable adhesive system involving a surface with a shallow depression. The system shows, at least…
Reversibility is of paramount importance in the correct representation of surface peeling in various physical settings, ranging from motility in nature, to gripping devices in robotic applications, and even to sliding of tectonic plates.…
Soft robotic snakes made of compliant materials can continuously deform their bodies and, therefore, mimic the biological snakes' flexible and agile locomotion gaits better than their rigid-bodied counterparts. Without wheel support, to…
Immediately before adsorption to a horizontal substrate, sinking polymer-coated colloids can undergo a complex sequence of landing, jumping, crawling and rolling events. Using video tracking we studied the soft adhesion to a horizontal flat…
High-frequency micrometrical vibrations have been shown to greatly influence the adhesive performance of soft interfaces, however a detailed comparison between theoretical predictions and experimental results is still missing. Here, the…
A theory of reciprocating contacts for linear viscoelastic materials is presented. Results are discussed for the case of a rigid sphere sinusoidally driven in sliding contact with a viscoelastic half-space. Depending on the size of the…
To investigate the link between discrete, small-scale and continuous, large scale mechanical properties of a foam, we observe its two-dimensional flow in a channel, around an elliptical obstacle. We measure the drag, lift and torque acting…
Deformations of heavy elastic cylinders with their axis in the direction of earth's gravity field are investigated. The specimens, made of polyacrylamide hydrogels, are attached from their top circular cross section to a rigid plate. An…
From hydrogels and plastics to liquid crystals, soft solids cover a wide array of synthetic and biological materials that play key enabling roles in advanced technologies such as 3D printing, soft robotics, wearable electronics,…
Splashing occurs when a liquid drop hits a dry solid surface at high velocity. This paper reports experimental studies of how the splash depends on the roughness and the texture of the surfaces as well as the viscosity of the liquid. For…
Our understanding of the structural features of foams and emulsions has advanced significantly over the last 20 years. However, with a search for "super-stable" liquid dispersions, foam and emulsion science employs increasingly complex…
The scaling properties of a random walker subject to the global constraint that it needs to visit each site an even number of times are determined. Such walks are realized in the equilibrium state of one dimensional surfaces that are…
Using molecular dynamics we study the dependence of the friction force on the sliding speed when an elastic slab (block) is sliding on a rigid substrate with a ${\rm sin} (q_0 x)$ surface height profile. The friction force is nearly…
We present the results of an experimental investigation into buoyant rigid spheres rising through highly concentrated collections of hydrated hydrogel particles. The volume fraction of particles is such that the mechanical properties of the…
A challenge in soft robotics and soft actuation is the determination of an elastic system which spontaneously recovers its trivial path during postcritical deformation after a bifurcation. The interest in this behaviour is that a…
Water drops sliding on hydrophobic surfaces spontaneously separate charges at their rear. It is unclear how this charge separation affects the contact angles of a sliding drop. We slide grounded and insulated drops on hydrophobic surfaces…
Active control of wrinkling in soft film-substrate composites using electric fields is a critical challenge in tunable material systems. Here, we investigate the electro-mechanical instability of a soft dielectric film bonded to a…
The tribology between surfaces can have a profound impact on the response of a mechanical system, such as how granular particles are driven to flow. In this work, we perform experiments that time-resolve the tangential and normal components…
A mechanical system consisting of an elastic beam under harmonic excitation and an attached sliding body is investigated. Recent experimental observations suggest that the system passively (self-)adapts the axial location of the slider to…