Related papers: (Dis)continuous buckling transition in elastic she…
We investigate experimentally and numerically the defect configurations emerging when a cholesteric liquid crystal is confined to a spherical shell. We uncover a rich scenario of defect configurations, some of them non-existent in nematic…
The buckling of thin elastic sheets is a classic mechanical instability that occurs over a wide range of scales. In the extreme limit of atomically thin membranes like graphene, thermal fluctuations can dramatically modify such mechanical…
Structures with artificial mechanical properties, often called mechanical metamaterials, exhibit divergent yet tunable performance. Various types of mechanical metamaterials have been proposed, which harness light or magnetic interactions,…
Slender elastic objects such as a column tend to buckle under loads. While static buckling is well understood as a bifurcation problem, the evolution of shapes during dynamic buckling is much harder to study. Elastic rings under normal…
The dynamic behavior of the slip length in a fluid flow confined between atomically smooth surfaces is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations. At weak wall-fluid interactions, the slip length increases nonlinearly with the shear…
Fast robotics pick-and-place with suction cups is a crucial component in the current development of automation in logistics (factory lines, e-commerce, etc.). By "critically fast" we mean the fastest possible movement for transporting an…
Active gels play an important role in biology and in inspiring biomimetic active materials, due to their ability to change shape, size and create their own morphology; the relevant mechanics behind these changes is driven by…
Contact modeling plays a central role in motion planning, simulation, and control of legged robots, as legged locomotion is realized through contact. The two prevailing approaches to model the contact consider rigid and compliant premise at…
Motivated by recent experiments on biomimetic membranes exposed to several aqueous phases, we theoretically study the morphology of a membrane in contact with a liquid droplet formed via aqueous phase separation. We concentrate on membranes…
We consider the axial compression of a thin sheet wrapped around a rigid cylindrical substrate. In contrast to the wrinkling-to-fold transitions exhibited in similar systems, we find that the sheet always buckles into a single symmetric…
We study elastic snap-through induced by a control parameter that evolves dynamically. In particular, we study an elastic arch subject to an end-shortening that evolves linearly with time, i.e. at a constant rate. For large end-shortening…
We study the influence of thermal fluctuations on the buckling behavior of thin elastic capsules with spherical rest shape. Thermal fluctuations affect the buckling instability by two mechanisms. On the one hand, thermal fluctuations can…
Many organisms, including various species of spiders and caterpillars, change their shape to switch gaits and adapt to different environments. Recent technological advances, ranging from stretchable circuits to highly deformable soft…
The initiation of directional cell motion requires symmetry breaking that can happen both with or without external stimuli. During cell crawling, forces generated by the cytoskeleton and their transmission through mechanosensitive adhesions…
Recently, researchers have explored control methods that embrace nonlinear dynamic coupling instead of suppressing it. Such designs leverage dynamical coupling for communication between different parts of the robot. Morphological…
In this study, we present a concept of morphing structure -- featuring an arch mounted on a compliant base -- that can be reconfigured via snap-through buckling and leverages bistability to retain its morphed shape. We show that…
Liquid shells (e.g. double emulsions, vesicles etc.) are susceptible to interfacial instability and rupturing when driven out of mechanical equilibrium. This poses a significant challenge for the design of liquid shell based micro-machines,…
A 2D contact dynamics model is proposed as a microscopic description of a collapsing suspension/soil to capture the essential physical processes underlying the dynamics of generation and collapse of the system. Our physical model is…
The complicated dynamics of the contact line of a moving droplet on a solid substrate often hamper the efficient modeling of microfluidic systems. In particular, the selection of the effective boundary conditions, specifying the contact…
Bundles of filamentous polymers are primary structural components of a broad range of cytoskeletal structures, and their mechanical properties play key roles in cellular functions ranging from locomotion to mechanotransduction and…