Related papers: Soft elasticity in biaxial smectic and smectic-C e…
We investigate numerically the yielding transition of a two dimensional model amorphous solid under external shear. We use a scalar model in terms of values of the total local strain, that we derive from the full (tensorial) description of…
A two dimensional amorphous material is modeled as an assembly of mesoscopic elemental pieces coupled together to form an elastically coherent structure. Plasticity is introduced as the existence of different minima in the energy landscape…
It is typical in smectic liquid crystals to describe elastic deformations with a linear theory when the elastic strain is small. We extend the recent, exact solution of Brener and Marchenko to more general one-dimensional deformations,…
Nematic liquid crystals exhibit both crystal-like and fluid-like features. In particular, the propagation of an acoustic wave shows an unexpected occurrence of some of the solid-like features at the hydrodynamic level, namely, the…
A pure and incompressible material is confined between two plates such that it is heated from below and cooled from above. When its melting temperature is comprised between these two imposed temperatures, an interface separating liquid and…
A discrete model describing defects in crystal lattices and having the standard linear anisotropic elasticity as its continuum limit is proposed. The main ingredients entering the model are the elastic stiffness constants of the material…
We study smectic liquid crystals in random environments, e.g., aerogel. A low temperature analysis reveals that even arbitrarily weak quenched disorder (i.e., arbitrarily low aerogel density) destroys translational (smectic) order. A…
Smart surfaces that reversibly change the interfacial friction coefficients in response to external stimuli enable a wide range of applications, such as grips, seals, brake pads, packaging films, and fabrics. Here a new concept of such a…
Self-organisation into spatially modulated structures has different nature from phase transition into uniform states. Skyrmions and half-skyrmions (merons) are representatives of such structures and are utilised in designing…
The minimal ingredient to generate a biaxial liquid crystalline ordering is usually considered to be the strongly biaxial interactions breaking the cylindrical symmetry of the uniaxial molecules. Although there is no fundamental reason to…
We show that stable, freely suspended liquid crystal films can be made from the ferroelectric nematic ($\mathrm{N_F}$) phase and from the recently discovered polar, lamellar $\mathrm{SmZ_A}$ and $\mathrm{SmA_F}$ phases. The $\mathrm{N_F}$…
Embedding magnetic colloidal particles in an elastic polymer matrix leads to smart soft materials that can reversibly be addressed from outside by external magnetic fields. We discover a pronounced nonlinear superelastic stress-strain…
Present work is a theoretical study on the stability of the thermotropic biaxial nematic liquid crystal phase in model systems. Its main aim is to present the phase diagrams of spatially uniform liquid mesophases and to identify the…
We study two closely related, nonlinear models of a viscoplastic solid. These models capture essential features of plasticity over a wide range of strain rates and applied stresses. They exhibit inelastic strain relaxation and steady flow…
We introduce a class of continuum mechanical models aimed at describing the behaviour of viscoelastic fluids by incorporating concepts originated in the theory of solid plasticity. Within this class, even a simple model with constant…
Variable stiffness is a key capability in biological and robotic systems, enabling adaptive interaction across tasks and environments. Mechanical metamaterials offer an alternative to conventional mechatronic solutions by encoding stiffness…
Deformations of conventional solids are described via elasticity, a classical field theory whose form is constrained by translational and rotational symmetries. However, flexible metamaterials often contain an additional approximate…
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 non-smooth dynamics is investigated for an elastic planar metainterface composed by two layers of buckling elements, each one allowing motion on one side only. Through the analogy between buckling and unilateral contact and by assuming…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are elastomeric networks with rod-like mesogens that reorient under load. In polydomain LCEs, this reorientation drives a polydomain-to-monodomain transition that produces a soft-elastic plateau. Coupling…