Related papers: The Physics of Soft Adhesion
The adhesive contact between elastic solids with randomly rough, self affine fractal surfaces is studied by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The interfacial binding energy obtained from the simulations of nominally flat and curved…
We consider some basic principles of fluid-induced lubrication at soft interfaces. In particular, we show how the presence of a soft substrate leads to an increase in the physical separation between surfaces sliding past each other. By…
A brief introduction to the theory and phenomenology of soft interactions is given, focusing on total and elastic cross sections and multiparticle production.
The friction and adhesion between elastic bodies are strongly influenced by the roughness of the surfaces in contact. Here we develop a multiscale molecular dynamics approach to contact mechanics, which can be used also when the surfaces…
Adhesive contact between a thin elastic sheet and a substrate in a liquid environment arises in a range of biological, physical and technological applications. By considering the dynamics of this process that naturally couples fluid flow,…
Soft materials, such as liquids, polymers, foams, gels, colloids, granular materials, and most soft biological materials, play an important role in our daily lives. From a mechanical viewpoint, soft materials can easily achieve large…
Surface stresses have recently emerged as a key player in the mechanics of highly compliant solids. The classic theories of contact mechanics describe adhesion with a compliant substrate as a competition between surface energies driving…
Cutting soft materials is a complex process governed by the interplay of bulk large deformation, interfacial soft fracture, and contact forces with the cutting tool. Existing experimental characterizations and numerical models often fail to…
This article aims to introduce the broad field of soft active matter physics and its relevance to the life sciences in simple, accessible language. Although this area of research is relatively new, it has already demonstrated significant…
Liquid crystal elastomers are cross-linked elastomer networks with liquid crystal mesogens incorporated into the main or side chain. Polydomain liquid crystalline (nematic) elastomers exhibit unusual mechanical properties like soft…
Adhesion is a key issue for researchers of various fields, it is therefore of uppermost importance to understand the parameters that are involved. Commonly, only surface parameters are employed to determine the adhesive forces between…
The dynamic of contact formation between soft materials immersed in a fluid is accompanied by fluid drainage and elastic deformation. As a result, controlling the coupling between lubrication pressure and elasticity provides strategies to…
Insects, pick-and-place manufacturing, engineered adhesives, and soft robots employ soft materials to stick to surfaces even in the presence of roughness. Experiments show that the force required for making contact is lower than for…
A general model covering a large variety of the so-called adhesive or cohesive, possibly also frictional, contact interfaces between visco-elastic bodies with inertia considered in a thermodynamical context is presented. A semi-implicit…
Current engineering wear models are often based on empirical parameters rather than built upon physical considerations. Here, we look for a physical description of adhesive wear at the microscale, at which the interaction between two…
Solid contacts involving soft materials are important in mechanical engineering or biomechanics. Experimentally, such contacts have been shown to shrink significantly under shear, an effect which is usually explained using adhesion models.…
A mechanistic understanding of adhesion in soft materials is critical in the fields of transportation (tires, gaskets, seals), biomaterials, micro-contact printing, and soft robotics. Measurements have long demonstrated that the apparent…
Engineering wear models are generally empirical and lack connections to the physical processes of debris generation at the nanoscale to microscale. Here, we thus analyze wear particle formation for sliding interfaces in dry contact with…
Intermolecular forces are known to precipitate adhesion events between solid bodies. Inspired by a macro-scale experiment showing the hysteretic adhesion of a piece of flexible tape over a plastic substrate, we develop here a model of…
Elastohydrodynamic lubrication, or simply soft lubrication, refers to the motion of deformable objects near a boundary lubricated by a fluid, and is one of the key physical mechanisms to minimise friction and wear in natural and engineered…