Related papers: Mechanical limits of viral capsids
We study at the laboratory scale the rupture of thin floating sheets made of a brittle material under a wave-induced mechanical forcing. We show that the rupture occurs where the curvature is maximum and the break-up threshold strongly…
Elastomeric materials display a complicated set of stretchability and fracture properties that strongly depend on the flaw size, which has long been of interest to engineers and materials scientists. Here, we combine experiments and…
The propagation of elastic waves in a fractured rock is investigated, both theoretically and numerically. Outside the fractures, the propagation of compressional waves is described in the simple framework of one-dimensional linear…
It has long been recognized that the key to understand kinetic friction force $F_k$ is the analysis of microscopic instabilities that lead to sudden irreversible "pops" of certain degrees of freedom. In this Letter, the nature of such…
We propose a variational phase-field model of fracture capable of accounting for arbitrary closed convex strength domains. Unlike traditional models based on Ambrosio and Tortorelli regularization, the phase-field variable does not affect…
Breakage is generally understood in mechanical terms, yet nano-structures can rupture not only under external loads but also via thermal activation. Here we treat in a general framework the statistical mechanics of thermally induced…
Single-stranded RNA viruses co-assemble their capsid with the genome and variations in capsid structures can have significant functional relevance. In particular, viruses need to respond to a dehydrating environment to prevent genomic…
We study suspensions of semi-flexible colloidal rods and biopolymers using an Onsager-type second-virial functional for a segmented-chain model. For suspensions of thin and thick fd virus particles we calculate phase diagrams in…
We simulate the assembly dynamics of icosahedral capsids from subunits that interconvert between different conformations (or quasi-equivalent states). The simulations identify mechanisms by which subunits form empty capsids with only one…
We consider a multiscale approach based on immersed methods for the efficient computational modeling of tissues composed of an elastic matrix (in two or three-dimensions) and a thin vascular structure (treated as a co-dimension two…
Cutting mechanics of soft solids is gaining rapid attention thanks to its promising benefits in material characterization and other applications. However, a full understanding of the physical phenomena is still missing, and several…
Fracture toughness $K_{IC}$ plays an important role in materials design. Along with numerous experimental methods to measure fracture toughness of materials, its understanding and theoretical prediction is very important. However,…
We study the effects realistic fracture criteria have on crack morphology obtained in numerical simulations with a stochastic discrete element method. Results are obtained with two criteria which are consistent with the theory of elasticity…
We report experiments on the deformation and transport of an elastic fiber in a viscous cellular flow, namely a lattice of counter-rotative vortices. We show that the fiber can buckle when approaching a stagnation point. By tuning either…
In complex crystals close to melting or at finite temperatures, different types of defects are ubiquitous and their role becomes relevant in the mechanical response of these solids. Conventional elasticity theory fails to provide a…
We study a phenomenological model in which the simulated packing of hard, attractive spheres on a prolate spheroid surface with convexity constraints produces structures identical to those of prolate virus capsid structures. Our simulation…
Scientific codes are an indispensable link between theory and experiment; in (astro-)plasma physics, such numerical tools are one window into the universe's most extreme flows of energy. The discretization of Maxwell's equations - needed to…
We adopt the point of view that analysis of the stability of the protein folding process is central to understanding the underlying physics of folding. Stability of the folding process means that many perturbations do not disrupt the…
A coarse-grained computational model is used to investigate the effect of a fluctuating fluid membrane on the dynamics of patchy-particle assembly into virus capsid-like cores. Results from simulations for a broad range of parameters are…
We study the uniaxial compressive behavior of disordered colloidal free-standing micropillars composed of a bidisperse mixture of 3 and 6 um polystyrene particles. Mechanical annealing of confined pillars enables variation of the packing…