Related papers: Elastocapillary adhesion of soft gel microspheres
A quantitative understanding of how cells interact with their extracellular matrix via molecular bonds is fundamental for many important processes in cell biology and engineering. In these interactions, the deformability of cells and matrix…
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…
The interfacial mechanics of soft elastic networks play a central role in biological and technological contexts. Yet, effects of solid capillarity have remained controversial, primarily due to the strain-dependent surface energy. Here we…
Extreme deformation of soft matter is central to our understanding of the effects of shock, fracture, and phase change in a variety of systems. Yet, despite, the increasing interest in this area, far-from-equilibrium behaviours of soft…
Recent experiments have shown that surface stresses in soft materials can have a significant strain-dependence. Here we explore the implications of this surface elasticity to show how, and when, we expect it to arise. We develop the…
We report detailed theoretical investigations of the micro-mechanics and bulk elastic properties of composites consisting of randomly distributed stiff fibers embedded in an elastic matrix in two and three dimensions. Recent experiments…
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…
We report a molecular dynamics study of the contact between a rigid solid with a randomly rough surface and an elastic block with a flat surface. We study the contact area and the interfacial separation from small contact (low load) to full…
Inspired by recent experiments demonstrating that vibrating elastic sheets can function as seemingly contactless suction cups, we investigate the elastohydrodynamic hovering of a thin elastic sheet vibrating near a rigid substrate. Previous…
Soft materials, such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions, and biological systems, are typically multicomponent mixtures of macromolecules and simpler components (e.g., microions, monomers, solvent) that can assemble into complex…
A hydrostatically stressed soft elastic film circumvents the imposed constraint by undergoing a morphological instability, the wavelength of which is dictated by the minimization of the surface and the elastic strain energies of the film.…
Contacts between particles in dense, sheared suspensions are believed to underpin much of their rheology. Roughness and adhesion are known to constrain the relative motion of particles, and thus globally affect the shear response, but an…
A partially-wetting liquid can deform the underlying elastic substrate upon which it rests. This situation requires the development of theoretical models to describe the wetting forces imparted by the drop onto the solid substrate,…
Contact mechanics-based models for the friction of nominally flat rough surfaces have not been able to adequately capture certain key experimentally observed phenomenona, such as the transition from a static friction peak to a lower level…
The surface free energy, or surface tension, of a liquid interface gives rise to a pressure jump when the interface is curved. Here we show that a similar capillary pressure arises at the interface of soft solids. We present experimental…
Motivated by roughness-induced adhesion enhancement (toughening and strengthening) in low modulus materials, we study the detachment of a sphere from a substrate in the presence of both viscoelastic dissipation at the contact edge, and…
A huge number of technological and biological systems involves the lubricated contact between rough surfaces of soft solids in relative accelerated motion. Examples include dynamical rubber seals and the human joints. In this study we…
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…
We exploit the controlled drying of millimeter-sized gel beads to investigate isotropic compression of colloidal fractal gels. Using a custom dynamic light scattering setup, we demonstrate that stresses imposed by drying on the bead surface…
Microgels are soft colloidal particles constituted by cross-linked polymer networks with a high potential for applications. In particular, after adsorption at a fluid interface, interfacial tension provides two-dimensional (2D) confinement…