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A two-dimensional system of particles with tunable repulsive interactions is experimentally investigated. Soft ferromagnetic particles are placed on a vibrating rough plate and vertically confined, so that they perform a horizontal Brownian…
Hyper-viscoelastic polymers have multiple areas of application including aerospace, biomedicine, and automotive. Their mechanical responses are therefore extremely important to understand, particularly because they exhibit strong rate and…
We investigate the influence of particle stiffness on the grasping performance of granular grippers, a class of soft robotic effectors that utilize granular jamming for object manipulation. Through experimental analyses and X-ray imaging,…
-Molecular simulations allow the study of properties and interactions of molecular systems. This article presents an improved version of the Adaptive Resolution Scheme that links two systems having atomistic (also called fine-grained) and…
We propose a bottom-up approach, based on Reinforcement Learning, to the design of a chain achieving efficient excitation-transfer performances. We assume distance-dependent interactions among particles arranged in a chain under…
We provide a two dimensional deformation model to describe how soft squishy circular particles respond to external forces and collisions. This model involves formulating mathematical equations and algorithms for the shape of a deformed…
Mechanical metamaterials are artificial composites with tunable advanced mechanical properties. Particularly interesting types of mechanical metamaterials are flexible metamaterials, which harness internal rotations and instabilities to…
The formation of chain-folded structures from the melt is observed in molecular dynamics simulations resembling the lamellae of polymer crystals. Crystallization and subsequent melting temperatures are related linearly to the inverse…
Machines enabled the Industrial Revolution and are central to modern technological progress: A machine's parts transmit forces, motion, and energy to one another in a predetermined manner. Today's engineering frontier, building artificial…
In this letter, we report results on the effect of temperature variations on a granular assembly through Molecular Dynamic simulations of a 2D granular column. Periodic dilation of the grains are shown to perfectly mimic such thermal…
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…
We consider a dilute system of small hard beads or hard fibers immersed in a very soft gel able to withstand large elastic deformations. Because of its low to very low shear modulus, this system is very sensitive to small forces. We…
We study the structural properties of two-dimensional granular packings prepared by random deposition from a source line. We consider a class of random ballistic deposition models based on single-particle relaxation rules controlled by a…
When an amorphous material is strained beyond the point of yielding it enters a state of continual reconfiguration via dissipative, avalanche-like slip events that relieve built-up local stress. However, how the statistics of such events…
Embedding magnetic colloidal particles in an elastic polymer matrix leads to smart soft materials that can reversibly be addressed from outside by external magnetic fields. We discover a pronounced nonlinear superelastic stress-strain…
Modularity in robotics holds great potential. In principle, modular robots can be disassembled and reassembled in different robots, and possibly perform new tasks. Nevertheless, actually exploiting modularity is yet an unsolved problem:…
Building materials such as concretes and mortar are formed by solidifying granular slabs. Such materials are often fractured by giant forces such as during earthquakes, leading to the collapse of structures and potentially casualties. One…
One of the central appealing properties of magnetic gels and elastomers is that their elastic moduli can reversibly be adjusted from outside by applying magnetic fields. The impact of the internal magnetic particle distribution on this…
Transmission of forces in static granular materials are studied within the framework of the force network ensemble, by numerically evaluating the mechanical response of hexagonal packings of frictionless grains and rectangular packings of…
We present a high-fidelity three dimensional computational framework for simulating the bulk mechanical behavior of granular aggregates composed of deformable brittle grains. Departing from classical discrete element methods (DEM), our…