Related papers: Evolution of Adaptive Force Chains in Reconfigurab…
Matrix-vector multiplications are a fundamental building block of artificial intelligence; this essential role has motivated their implementation in a variety of physical substrates, from memristor crossbar arrays to photonic integrated…
The application of granular jamming in soft robotics is a recent and promising new technology offer exciting possibilities for creating higher performance robotic devices. Granular jamming is achieved via the application of a vacuum…
We study the particle-scale dynamics that give rise to bulk flow behaviours of highly concentrated particle-fluid mixtures using discrete element method (DEM) simulations. We utilize boundary conditions of a stress-controlled shear cell and…
Developing accurate and efficient coarse-grained representations of proteins is crucial for understanding their folding, function, and interactions over extended timescales. Our methodology involves simulating proteins with molecular…
The study of the interactions of living adherent cells with mechanically stable (visco)elastic materials enables understanding and exploiting physiological phenomena mediated by cell-extracellular communication. However, insight on the…
Granular chain packings exhibit a striking emergent strain-stiffening behavior despite the individual looseness of the constitutive chains. Using indentation experiments on such assemblies, we measure an exponential increase in the…
The effects of movement of the side walls of a confined granular packing are studied by discrete element, molecular dynamics simulations. The dynamical evolution of the stress is studied as a function of wall movement both in the direction…
We simulate the granulation process of solid spherical particles in the presence of a viscous liquid in a horizontal rotating drum by using molecular dynamics simulations in three dimensions. The numerical approach accounts for the cohesive…
Foam is a canonical example of disordered soft matter where local force balance leads to the competition of many metastable configurations. Here we present an experimental and theoretical framework for "active foam" where an individual…
Cell-based, mathematical modeling of collective cell behavior has become a prominent tool in developmental biology. Cell-based models represent individual cells as single particles or as sets of interconnected particles, and predict the…
We demonstrate that a semiflexible bundle of wormlike chains exhibits a state-dependent bending stiffness that alters fundamentally its scaling behavior with respect to the standard wormlike chain. We explore the equilibrium conformational…
The leading order "temperature" of a dense two dimensional granular material fluidised by external vibrations is determined. An asymptotic solution is obtained where the particles are considered to be elastic in the leading approximation.…
Entangled matter provides intriguing perspectives in terms of deformation mechanisms, mechanical properties, assembly and disassembly. However, collective entanglement mechanisms are complex, occur over multiple length scales, and they are…
The properties of soft electronic materials depend on the coupling of electronic and conformational degrees of freedom over a wide range of spatiotemporal scales. Description of such properties requires multiscale approaches capable of, at…
The linear viscoelastic response of flexible polymer solutions in the dilute and semidilute unentangled regimes is investigated using Brownian dynamics simulations. The relaxation modulus and dynamic moduli are computed over a wide range of…
Both the shape of individual particles and their surface properties contribute to the strength of a granular material under shear. Here we show the degree to which these two aspects can be intertwined. In experiments on assemblies of 3D…
We systematically explore the self-assembly of semi-flexible polymers in deformable spherical confinement across a wide regime of chain stiffness, contour lengths and packing fractions by means of coarse-grained molecular dynamics…
Colloidal particles with mobile binding molecules constitute a powerful platform for probing the physics of self-assembly. Binding molecules are free to diffuse and rearrange on the surface, giving rise to spontaneous control over the…
The structure and stresses of static granular packs in cylindrical containers are studied using large-scale discrete element molecular dynamics simulations in three dimensions. We generate packings by both pouring and sedimentation and…
Granular packings of non-convex or elongated particles can form free-standing structures like walls or arches. For some particle shapes, such as staples, the rigidity arises from interlocking of pairs of particles, but the origins of…