Related papers: A Compact Peristaltic Pump Based on Magneto-Elasti…
Thanks to recent advancements in the development of inexpensive, high-resolution tactile sensors, touch sensing has become popular in contact-rich robotic manipulation tasks. With the surge of data-driven methods and their requirement for…
This paper investigates the influence of the internal geometrical structure of soft pneu-nets on the dynamic response and hysteresis of the actuators. The research findings indicate that by strategically manipulating the stress distribution…
This paper presents the design, fabrication, and experimental characterization of a peristaltic micropump. The micropump is composed of two layers fabricated from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) material. The first layer has a rectangular…
Soft intertwined channel systems are frequently found in fluid flow networks in nature. The passage geometry of these systems can deform due to fluid flow, which can cause the relationship between flow rate and pressure drop to deviate from…
Nematic elastomers are programmable soft materials that display large, reversible and predictable deformation under an external stimulus such as a change in temperature or light. While much of the work in the field has focused on actuation…
The study of elastic structures embedded with fluid-filled cavities received considerable attention in fields such as autonomous materials, sensors, actuators, and smart systems. This work studies an elastic beam embedded with a set of…
How internal forces are transduced into motion through soft, fluid membranes remains a fundamental question in the study of active systems. To investigate this coupling, we develop a minimal system consisting of a single ferromagnetic…
The integration of a PDMS membrane within orthogonally placed PMMA microfluidic channels enables the pneumatic actuation of valves within bonded PMMA-PDMS-PMMA multilayer devices. Here, surface functionalization of PMMA substrates via acid…
Relative motion between soft wet solids arises in a number of applications in natural and artificial settings, and invariably couples elastic deformation and fluid flow. We explore this in a minimal setting by considering a fluid-immersed…
Collocated tactile sensing is a fundamental enabling technology for dexterous manipulation. However, deformable sensors introduce complex dynamics between the robot, grasped object, and environment that must be considered for fine…
The pharynx of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a neuromuscular pump that exhibits two typical motions: pumping and peristalsis. While the dynamics of these motions are well characterized, the underlying mechanisms generating most of…
Soft actuators allow to transform external stimuli to mechanical deformations. Because of their deformational response to external magnetic fields, magnetic gels and elastomers represent ideal candidates for such tasks. Mostly, linear…
Electrostatic actuators are simple but important switching devices for MEMS applications. Due to the difficulties associated with the electrostatic nonlinearity, precise mathematical description is often hard to obtain for the dynamics of…
Soft elastic composite materials containing particulate rigid inclusions in a soft elastic matrix are candidates for developing soft actuators or tunable damping devices. The possibility to reversibly drive the rigid inclusions within such…
In a world without inertia, Purcell's scallop theorem states that in a Newtonian fluid a time-reversible motion cannot produce any net force or net flow. Here we consider the extent to which the nonlinear rheological behavior of…
Discrete simulation methods are efficient tools to investigate the complex behaviors of complex fluids made of either dry granular materials or dilute suspensions. By contrast, materials made of soft and/or concentrated units (emulsions,…
We present an experimental method to fabricate centimetric thin elastic capsules with highly uniform thickness and negligible bending stiffness using silicone elastomers. In our experiments, the capsules thickness is tunable at fabrication,…
Peristalsis is the driving mechanism behind a broad array of biological and engineered flows. In peristaltic pumping, a wave-like contraction of the tube wall produces local changes in volume which induce flow. Net flow arises due to…
Peristalsis by actively generated waves of muscle contraction is one of the most fundamental ways of producing motion in living systems. We show that peristalsis can be modeled by a train of rectangular-shaped solitary waves of localized…
We describe a new model for the study of weakly-collisional, magnetized plasmas derived from exploiting the separation of the dynamics parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field. This unique system of equations retains the particle…