Related papers: Measuring elastic properties of granular hydrogels…
By reinforcing the interaction energy of the liquid with respect to the surface using total wetting boundary conditions, the response of liquids to mechanical shear stress is stronger and exhibits at sub-millimeter scale elastic properties.…
Hydrogels have had a profound impact in the fields of tissue engineering, drug delivery, and materials science as a whole. Due to the network architecture of these materials, imbibement with water often results in uniform swelling and…
A numerical study of multi-phase granular materials based upon micro-mechanical modelling is proposed. Discrete element simulations are used to investigate capillary induced effects on the friction properties of a granular assembly in the…
From pasta to biological tissues to contact lenses, gel and gel-like materials inherently soften as they swell with water. In dry, low-relative-humidity environments, these materials stiffen as they de-swell with water. Here, we use…
We investigate shear strength properties of wet granular materials in the pendular state (i.e. the state where the liquid phase is discontinuous) as a function of water content. Sand and glass beads were wetted and tested in a direct shear…
The rheological properties of suspensions of bubbles in yield stress fluids are investigated through experiments on model systems made of monodisperse bubbles dispersed in concentrated emulsions. Thanks to this highly tunable system, the…
Elasticity of soft materials can be greatly influenced by the presence of air bubbles. Such a capillary effect is expected for a wide range of materials, from polymer gels to concentrated emulsions and colloidal suspensions. Whereas…
Hydrogels hold promise in agriculture as reservoirs of water in dry soil, potentially alleviating the burden of irrigation. However, confinement in soil can markedly reduce the ability of hydrogels to absorb water and swell, limiting their…
The motion of a gas-liquid interface along a solid wall is influenced by the capillary forces resulting from the interface's shape and its interaction with the solid, where it forms a dynamic contact angle. Capillary models play a…
It is established that the mechanical properties of hydrogels control the fate of (stem) cells. However, despite its importance, a one-to-one correspondence between gels' stiffness and cell behaviour is still missing from literature. In…
We have performed surface tension measurements on carbopol gels of different concentrations and yield stresses. Our setup, based on the force exerted by a capillary bridge on two parallel plates, allows to measure an effective surface…
We present a simple method for accessing the elastic properties of microscopic deformable particles. This method is based on measuring the pressure-induced deformation of soft particles as they are forced through a tapered glass…
An adhesively stressed thin film of a soft hydrogel confined between two rigid flat substrates auto-roughens with its dominant wavelength exhibiting pronounced dependence on the film thickness (H). A linear stability analysis confirmed that…
Rheometric measurements on assemblies of wet polystyrene bead assemblies, in steady uniform quasistatic shear flow, for varying liquid content within the small saturation (pendular) range of isolated liquid bridges, are supplemented with a…
The macroscopic mechanical properties of colloidal particle gels strongly depend on the local arrangement of the powder particles. Experiments have shown that more heterogeneous microstructures exhibit up to one order of magnitude higher…
Contact of a fluid with a solid or an elastic wall is investigated. The wall exerts molecular forces on the fluid which is locally strongly nonhomogeneous. The problem is approached with a fluid energy of the second gradient form and a wall…
The elastic properties of a soft matter material can be greatly altered by the presence of solid inclusions whose microscopic properties, such as their size and interactions, can have a dramatic effect. In order to shed light on these…
Ionic microgel particles are intriguing systems in which the properties of thermo-responsive polymeric colloids are enriched by the presence of charged groups. In order to rationalize their properties and predict the behaviour of microgel…
Cracking of suspensions during drying is a common problem. While additives, e.g. binders and surfactants, can mitigate this problem, some applications, such as printing conductive pastes or sintering green bodies, do not lend themselves to…
Glass formers exhibit a viscoelastic behavior: at the laboratory timescale, they behave like (glassy) solids at low temperatures, and like liquids at high temperatures. Based on this observation, elastic models relate the long time…