Related papers: Bridging a gap: A heavy elastica between point sup…
We report experiments on the deformation and transport of an elastic fiber in a viscous cellular flow, namely a lattice of counter-rotative vortices. We show that the fiber can buckle when approaching a stagnation point. By tuning either…
Contact involving soft materials often combines dry adhesion, sliding friction, and large deformations. At the local level, these three aspects are rarely captured simultaneously, but included in the theoretical models by Mergel et al.…
Mechanical instabilities can be exploited to design innovative structures, able to change their shape in the presence of external stimuli. In this work, we derive a mathematical model of an elastic beam subjected to an axial force and…
We study the deflection and fluctuations of a clamped elastic fiber embedded in 2D foam under quasistatic flow. At all times, the fiber conformation results from the elasto-capillary interactions with the foam. We independently measure the…
In this work we study the problem of one-dimensional elastic collisions of billiard balls, considered as rigid bodies, in a framework very different from the classical one presented in text books. Implementing the notion of impedance…
When a suspension dries, the suspending fluid evaporates, leaving behind a dry film composed of the suspended particles. During the final stages of drying, the height of the fluid film on the substrate drops below the particle size,…
Extra-large deformations in ultra-soft elastic materials are ubiquitous, yet systematic studies and methods to understand the mechanics of such huge strains are lacking. Here we investigate this complex problem systematically with a simple…
Using a thermodynamical approach, we calculate the deformation of a spherical elastic particle placed on a rigid substrate, under zero external load, and including an ingredient of importance in soft matter: the interfacial tension of the…
We derive a mathematical model and the corresponding computational scheme to study deflection of a two-dimensional elastic cantilever beam immersed in a channel, where one end of the beam is fixed to the channel wall. The immersed boundary…
When a high voltage is applied between two beakers filled with deionized water, a bridge of water may be formed in between exceeding the length of 2 cm when the beakers are pulled apart. We construct experiments in which the geometry and…
This article studies the fundamental problem of separating two adhesive elastic fibers based on numerical simulation employing a recently developed finite element model for molecular interactions between curved slender fibers. Specifically,…
When transported in confined geometries rigid fibers show interesting transport dynamics induced by friction with the top and bottom walls. Fiber flexibility causes an additional coupling between fiber deformation and transport and is…
We examine transient axial creeping flow in the annular gap between a rigid cylinder and a concentric elastic tube. The gap is initially filled with a thin fluid layer. The study focuses on viscous-elastic time-scales for which the rate of…
The mechanical response of elastic porous media confined within rigid geometries is central to a wide range of industrial, geological, and biomedical systems. However, current models for these problems typically overlook the role of wall…
The motion of flexible fibers through structured fluidic environments is ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications. Most often, their dynamics results from the complex interplay between internal elastic stresses, contact forces and…
We investigate excluded-volume effects in a bidisperse colloidal suspension near a flexible interface. Inspired by a recent experiment by Dinsmore et al. (Phys. Rev, Lett. 80, 409 (1998)), we study the adsorption of a mesoscopic bead on the…
We study, numerically and analytically, the forced transport of deformable containers through a narrow constriction. Our central aim is to quantify the competition between the constriction geometry and the active forcing, regulating whether…
Using molecular dynamic simulation, we study the stretching of an adsorbed homopolymer in a poor solvent with one end held at a distance $z_e$ from the substrate. We measure the vertical force $f$ on the end of the chain as a function of…
We study numerically how multiple deformable capsules squeeze into a constriction. This situation is largely encountered in microfluidic chips designed to manipulate living cells, which are soft entities. We use fully three-dimensional…
We study the interaction of a liquid drop with an elastic beam in the case where bending effects dominate. We use a variational approach to derive equilibrium equations for the system in the presence of gravity and in the presence or…