Related papers: Self-organized adaptive branching in frangible mat…
Comparison of a few simple models of fluid and solid membranes illustrates how shear stresses can arise from a bending energy through a coupling between curvature and surface stresses, a feature incidental to the fluid or solid nature of…
In comparative and developmental neuroanatomy one encounters questions regarding the deformation of neural tissue under stress. The motivation of this note is an observation (Barbas {\it et al}) that at cortical folds or gyri, the layers of…
Two dimensional active fluids display a transition from turbulent to coherent flow upon decreasing the size of the confining geometry. A recent experiment suggests that the behavior in three dimensions is remarkably different; emergent…
We develop a theory for distributed branch points and investigate their role in determining the shape and influencing the mechanics of thin hyperbolic objects. We show that branch points are the natural topological defects in hyperbolic…
We present simple models of particulate materials whose mechanical integrity arises from a jamming process. We argue that such media are generically "fragile", that is, they are unable to support certain types of incremental loading without…
The hallmark feature of polymorphic systems is their ability to assemble into many possible structures at the same thermodynamic state. Designer polymorphic materials can in principle be engineered via programmable self-assembly, but the…
A ubiquitous motif in nature is the self-similar hierarchical buckling of a thin lamina near its margins. This is seen in leaves, flowers, fungi, corals, and marine invertebrates. We investigate this morphology from the perspective of…
We study the scaling properties of forced folding of thin materials of different geometry. The scaling relations implying the topological crossovers from the folding of threedimensional plates to the folding of two-dimensional sheets, and…
Cracks in soft materials exhibit diverse dynamic patterns, involving straight, oscillation, branching, and supershear fracture. Here, we successfully reproduce these crack morphologies in a two-dimensional pre-strained fracture scenario and…
The rheological properties of biological tissues are core to processes such as cancer metastasis, wound healing and embryo development. The emergence of tissue and organ structures during morphogenesis requires the precise formation of…
Direct numerical simulations are conducted to study the receptivity and transition mechanisms in a solitary wave boundary layer developing over randomly organized wave-like bottom topography. The boundary layer flow shows a selective…
Fractal patterns are observed in computational mechanics of elastic-plastic transitions in two models of linear elastic/perfectly-plastic random heterogeneous materials: (1) a composite made of locally isotropic grains with weak random…
In this work, we study the deformation behavior of thin films of various soft glassy materials that are simultaneously subjected to two creep flow fields, rotational shear flow by applying torque and elongational flow by applying normal…
The design of intelligent materials often draws parallels with the complex adaptive behaviors of biological organisms, where robust functionality stems from sophisticated hierarchical organization and emergent long-distance coordination…
Pneumatic soft everting robotic structures have the potential to facilitate human transfer tasks due to their ability to grow underneath humans without sliding friction and their utility as a flexible sling when deflated. Tubular structures…
Graphene as well as more generally Dirac solids constitute two dimensional materials where the electronic flow is ultra relativistic. When a Dirac solid is deposited on a different substrate surface with roughness, a local random potential…
Mechanical metamaterials can be designed to exhibit unique mechanical properties, including tunable auxetic behavior as well as multi-stability, which arise from the geometry and configuration of the constituent building blocks.…
Bone adapts in response to its mechanical environment. This evolution of bone density is one of the most important mechanisms for developing fracture resistance. A finite element framework for simulating bone adaptation, commonly called…
Flow through porous media can reshape the medium through erosion and deposition, producing preferential flow channels across a wide range of natural and industrial systems. Yet the mechanisms by which spatial disorder triggers…
Designing soft robots poses considerable challenges: automated design approaches may be particularly appealing in this field, as they promise to optimize complex multi-material machines with very little or no human intervention.…