Related papers: Soft Electromechanical Elastomers Impervious to In…
Weakly conducting dielectric liquid drops suspended in another dielectric liquid and subject to an applied uniform electric field exhibit a wide range of dynamical behaviors contingent on field strength and material properties. These…
Liquid crystal elastomers are rubber-like solids with liquid crystalline mesogens (stiff, rod-like molecules) incorporated either into the main chain or as a side chain of the polymer. These solids display a range of unusual…
This paper describes a method for steering deformable linear objects using two robot hands in environments populated by sparsely spaced obstacles. The approach involves manipulating an elastic inextensible rod by varying the gripping…
We argue that nucleation of brittle cracks in initially flawless soft elastic solids is preceded by a nonlinear elastic instability, which cannot be captured without accounting for geometrical precise description of finite elastic…
We formulate a general theory of the dielectric response of a lattice with a structural transition and a polarization instability due to a soft-optic mode coupled to low energy electronic excitations by the electromagnetic fields. the…
Compression-induced buckling instability of metal thin films on a compliant base result in surface wrinkles. A stiff thin film, perfectly bonded to an infinitely deep pre-stretched dielectric elastomer (DE) substrate, is considered. Linear…
A phase field model is presented to investigate dislocation formation (coherency loss) and workhardening in two-phase binary alloys. In our model the elastic energy density is a periodic function of the shear and tetragonal strains, which…
It is shown that a compound elastic structure, which displays a dynamic instability, may be designed as the union (or 'fusion') of two structures which are stable when separately analyzed. The compound elastic structure has two degrees of…
Dielectric elastomers are widely studied for their use in robotic and medical devices due to their shape changing properties. Recently, they have also been incorporated into acoustic devices, motivating the development of an electroacoustic…
The application of pure torsion to a long and thin cylindrical rod is known to provoke a twisting instability, evolving from an initial kink to a knot. In the torsional parallel-plate rheometry of stubby cylinders, the geometrical…
We investigate the nonlinear vibrations of a functionally graded dielectric elastomer plate subjected to electromechanical loads. We focus on local and global dynamics in the system. We employ the Gent strain energy function to model the…
Deformations of conventional solids are described via elasticity, a classical field theory whose form is constrained by translational and rotational symmetries. However, flexible metamaterials often contain an additional approximate…
Rotating the clamped ends of a buckled elastica induces a snap-through instability. Predicting the limit point and determining the equilibria at the start and end of the snap are routine computations in the quasi-static setting. The…
We show that, in the athermal quasi-static deformation of amorphous materials, the onset of failure is accompanied by universal scalings associated with a \emph{divergence} of elastic constants. A normal mode analysis of the non-affine…
Recent experiments have exploited elastic instabilities in membranes to create complex patterns. However, the rational design of such structures poses many challenges, as they are products of nonlinear elastic behavior. We pose a simple…
Designing smart devices with tunable shapes has important applications in industrial manufacture. In this paper, we investigate the nonlinear deformation and the morphological transitions between buckling, necking, and snap-through…
In this paper, we study, from both variational and numerical points of view, a dynamic contact problem between a viscoelastic-viscoplastic piezoelectric body and a deformable obstacle. The contact is modelled using the classical normal…
Macroscale robotic systems have demonstrated great capabilities of high speed, precise, and agile functions. However, the ability of soft robots to perform complex tasks, especially in centimeter and millimeter scale, remains limited due to…
The nonlinear mechanics of a flexible elastic rod constrained at its edges by a pair of sliding sleeves is analyzed. The planar equilibrium configurations of this variable-length elastica are found to have shape defined only by the…
Liquid crystal elastomers realize a fascinating new form of soft matter that is a composite of a conventional crosslinked polymer gel (rubber) and a liquid crystal. These {\em solid} liquid crystal amalgams, quite similarly to their…