Related papers: Entropic Elasticity at the Sol-Gel Transition
Extra-large deformations in ultra-soft elastic materials are ubiquitous, yet systematic studies and methods to understand the mechanics of such huge strains are lacking. Here we investigate this complex problem systematically with a simple…
A unique bistable transition has been identified in granular/colloidal gel-composites, resulting from shear-induced phase separation of the gel phase into dense blobs. In energy applications, it is critical to understand how this transition…
Assemblies of purely repulsive and frictionless particles, such as emulsions or hard spheres, display very curious properties near their jamming transition, which occurs at the random close packing for mono-disperse spheres. Although such…
We recently found that the energy contribution to the linear elasticity of polymer gels in the as-prepared state can be a significant negative value; the shear modulus is not proportional to the absolute temperature [Y. Yoshikawa et al.,…
In a recent publication we established an analogy between the free energy of a hard sphere system and the energy of an elastic network [1]. This result enables one to study the free energy landscape of hard spheres, in particular to define…
In this study we use non-equilibrium thermodynamics to systematically derive a phase-field model of a polyelectrolyte gel coupled to a hydrodynamic model for a salt solution surrounding the gel. The governing equations for the gel account…
Unilateral interparticle interactions have an effect on the elastic response of granular materials due to the opening and closing of contacts during quasi-static shear deformations. A simplified model is presented, for which constitutive…
Spinodal demixing of systems into two phases having very different viscosities leads to viscoelastic networks, i.e. gels. Here we consider demixing in a colloidal system where one phase is a nematic liquid crystal with a strongly…
We discuss a class of models for particulate gels in which the particle contacts are described by an effective interaction combining a two-body attraction and a three-body angular repulsion. Using molecular dynamics, we show how varying the…
We propose an approach to measure surface elastic constants of soft solids. Generally, this requires one to probe interfacial mechanics at around the elastocapillary length scale, which is typically microscopic. Deformations of microscopic…
Swelling is a volumetric-growth process in which a porous material expands by spontaneous imbibition of additional pore fluid. Swelling is distinct from other growth processes in that it is inherently poromechanical: Local expansion of the…
Numerical and analytical methods are developed for the investigation of contact sets in electrostatic-elastic deflections modeling micro-electro mechanical systems. The model for the membrane deflection is a fourth-order semi-linear partial…
The thermodynamics and dynamics of supercooled liquids correlate with their elasticity. In particular for covalent networks, the jump of specific heat is small and the liquid is {\it strong} near the threshold valence where the network…
We investigate the phase behaviour of a two-dimensional colloidal model system of ultra-soft particles on a substrate which varies periodically along one spatial direction. Our calculations are based on mean-field density functional theory…
We study an elasticity model for compressed protein monolayers or particle rafts at a liquid interface. Based on the microscopic view of hard-core particles with soft shells, a bead-spring model is formulated and analyzed in terms of…
An extended Molecular-Dynamics study of the short-time "glassy" elasticity exhibited by a polymer melt of linear fully-flexible chains above the glass transition is presented. The focus is on the infinite-frequency shear modulus $G_\infty$…
We analyze the behavior of supercooled fluids under shear both theoretically and numerically. Theoretically, we generalize the mode-coupling theory of supercooled fluids to systems under stationary shear flow. Our starting point is the set…
Based on experiments and 3-D simulations, we show that a soft elastic film during adhesion and debonding from a rigid flat surface undergoes morphological transitions to pillars, labyrinths and cavities, all of which have the same lateral…
Isostatic networks are minimally rigid and therefore have, generically, nonzero elastic moduli. Regular isostatic networks have finite moduli in the limit of large sizes. However, numerical simulations show that all elastic moduli of…
Numerous soft materials jam into an amorphous solid at high packing fraction. This non-equilibrium phase transition is best understood in the context of a model system in which particles repel elastically when they overlap. Recently,…