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The phase behavior of helical packings of thermoresponsive microspheres inside glass capillaries is studied as a function of volume fraction. Stable packings with long-range orientational order appear to evolve abruptly to disordered states…
Two mathematical models are derived to describe the thermal dynamics of a plastics production machine. The Smart Sensor design is based on the finite volume model. The accuracy of the derived finite volume model is validated by a finite…
Microgels are complex macromolecules. These colloid-sized polymer networks possess internal degrees of freedom and, depending on the polymer(s) they are made of, can acquire a responsiveness to variations of the environment (temperature,…
The unique working mechanics of roller-type peristaltic pumps have allowed their applications to span a wide variety of sectors and industries. The roller-type pump's accurate dosing and hydrostatic capabilities can theoretically allow for…
Soft particles such as microgels and core-shell particles can undergo significant and anisotropic deformations when adsorbed to a liquid interface. This, in turn, leads to a complex phase behavior upon compression. Here we develop a…
A model based on the existence of two different competing local structures in water is described. It is shown that it can explain the transition between fragile and strong behavior that supercooled water has around 220 K. The high…
We use molecular dynamics simulations of a simple model to show that dispersions of slightly elongated colloidal particles with long-range dipolar interactions, like ferrofluids, can form a physical (reversible) gel at low volume fractions.…
In active microrheology the mechanical properties of a material are tested by adding probe particles which are pulled by an external force. In case of supercooled liquids, strong forcing leads to a thinning of the host material which…
Hydrogel coatings absorb water vapor - or other solvents - and, as such, are good candidates for antifog applications. In the present study, the transfer of vapor from the atmosphere to hydrogel thin films is measured in a situation where…
The hydrogen phase diagram has a number of unusual features which are generally well reproduced by density functional calculations. Unfortunately, these calculations fail to provide good physical insights into why those features occur. In…
Super-cooled liquids are characterized by their fragility: the slowing down of the dynamics under cooling is more sudden and the jump of specific heat at the glass transition is generally larger in fragile liquids than in strong ones.…
Flagellated microorganisms can swim at low Reynolds numbers and adapt to changes in their environment. Specifically, the flagella can switch their shapes or modes through gene expression. In the past decade, efforts have been made to…
A microscopic model of the lipid membrane is constructed that provides analytically tractable description of the physical mechanism of the first order liquid-gel phase transition. We demonstrate that liquid-gel phase transition is…
In an attempt to extend the range of model jamming transitions, we simulate systems of athermal particles which attract when slightly overlapping. Following from recent work on purely repulsive systems, dynamics are neglected and relaxation…
Infrared pump-probe spectroscopy provides detailed information on the dynamics of hydrogen-bonded liquids. Due to dissipation of the absorbed pump pulse energy, also thermal equilibration dynamics contributes to the observed signal.…
Biological systems achieve adaptive mechanical responses through reaction-diffusion processes that couple chemical wave propagation to structural transitions. Although synthetic hydrogels with enzymatic reactions offer a platform for…
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…
It is established that the mechanical properties of hydrogels control the fate of (stem) cells. However, despite its importance, a one-to-one correspondence between gels' stiffness and cell behaviour is still missing from literature. In…
Many systems, including polymers and molecular liquids, when adequately cooled and/or compressed, solidify into a disordered solid, i.e., a glass. The~transition is not abrupt, featuring progressive decrease of the microscopic mobility and…
This paper describes an intelligent management algorithm for an aggregate of domestic electric water heaters called to provide a demand response service. This algorithm is developed using Model Predictive Control. The model of the entire…