Related papers: Mechanical limits of viral capsids
Amorphous solids, confined on the nano-scale, exhibit a wealth of novel phenomena yet to be explored. In particular, the response of such solids to a mechanical load is not well understood and, as has been demonstrated experimentally, it…
Many viruses rely on the self-assembly of their capsids to protect and transport their genomic material. For many viral systems, in particular for human viruses like hepatitis B, adeno or human immunodeficiency virus, that lead to…
The paper presents an approach for the identification of elasto-static parameters of a robotic manipulator using the virtual experiments in a CAD environment. It is based on the numerical processing of the data extracted from the finite…
In an effort to build a stronger microscopic foundation for radiation damage models in gallium arsenide (GaAs), the electronic properties of radiation-induced damage clusters are studied with atomistic simulations. Molecular dynamics…
Solid interfaces have intrinsic elasticity. However, in most experiments, this is obscured by bulk stresses. Through microscopic observations of the contact-line geometry of a partially wetting droplet on an anisotropically stretched…
We investigate the quasi-static growth of elastic fibers in the presence of dry or viscous friction. An unusual form of destabilization beyond a critical length is described. In order to characterize this phenomenon, a new definition of…
The mechanical properties of cells, which influence the properties of the tissue they belong to, are controlled by various mechanisms. Bi et al. theoretically demonstrated that density-independent rigidity transition occurs in…
We study the microrheology of nanoparticle shells [Dinsmore et al. Science 298, 1006 (2002)] and viral capsids [Ivanovska et al. PNAS 101, 7600 (2004)] by computing the mechanical response function and thermal fluctuation spectrum of a…
In this paper an experimental validation of numerical approaches aimed to predict the coupled behaviour of microbeams for out-of-plane bending tests is performed. This work completes a previous investigation concerning in plane microbeams…
A new model for computer simulation of solids, composed of bonded rigid body particles, is proposed. Vectors rigidly connected with particles are used for description of deformation of a single bond. The expression for potential energy of…
The paper presents results of numerical experiments performed to evaluate the effective viscosity of a fluid-proppant mixture, used in hydraulic fracturing. The results, obtained by two complimenting methods (the particle dynamics and the…
A dynamic crack will travel in a straight path up to a material-dependent critical speed beyond which its path becomes erratic. Predicting this critical speed and discovering the origin of this instability are two outstanding problems in…
A liquid droplet resting on a soft gel substrate can deform that substrate to the point of material failure, whereby fractures develop on the gel surface that propagate outwards from the contact-line in a starburst pattern. In this paper,…
We study numerically how multiple deformable capsules squeeze into a constriction. This situation is largely encountered in microfluidic chips designed to manipulate living cells, which are soft entities. We use fully three-dimensional…
The physical foundations of the dissipation of energy and the associated heating in weakly collisional plasmas are poorly understood. Here, we compare and contrast several measures that have been used to characterize energy dissipation and…
Using positional data from video-microscopy of a two-dimensional colloidal system and from simulations of hard discs we determine the wave-vector-dependent normal mode spring constants in the supercooled fluid and glassy state,…
Investigations of natural variation in cell mechanics within a cell population are essential to understand the stochastic nature of soft-network deformation. Striking commonalities have been found concerning the average values and…
In this paper we present a discrete model governing the deformation of a convex regular polygon subjected not to cross a given flat rigid surface, on which it initially lies in correspondence of one point only. First, we set up the model in…
We analyze data from confocal microscopy experiments of a colloidal suspension to validate predictions of rapid sporadic events responsible for structural relaxation in a glassy sample. The trajectories of several thousand colloidal…
In order to replicate within their cellular host, many viruses have developed self-assembly strategies for their capsids which are sufficiently robust as to be reconstituted in vitro. Mathematical models for virus self-assembly usually…