The prediction of the lifetime of surface bubbles necessitates a better understanding of the thinning dynamics of the bubble cap. In 1959, Mysel textit{et al.} cite{mysels1959soap}, proposed that textit{marginal regeneration} i.e. the rise of patches
, thinner than the film should be taken into account to describe the film drainage. Nevertheless, an accurate description of these buoyant patches and of their dynamics as well as a quantification of their contribution to the thinning dynamics is still lacking. In this paper, we visualize the patches, and show that their rising velocities and sizes are in good agreement with models respectively based on the balance of gravitational and surface viscous forces and on a Rayleigh-Taylor like instability cite{Seiwert2017,Shabalina2019}. Our results suggest that, in an environment saturated in humidity, the drainage induced by their dynamics correctly describes the film drainage at the apex of the bubble within the experimental error bars. We conclude that the film thinning of soap bubbles is indeed controlled, to a large extent, by textit{marginal regeneration} in the absence of evaporation.
For various engineering and industrial applications it is desirable to realize mechanical systems with broadly adjustable elasticity to respond flexibly to the external environment. Here we discover a topology-correlated transition between affine and
non-affine regimes in elasticity in both two- and three-dimensional packing-derived networks. Based on this transition, we numerically design and experimentally realize multifunctional systems with adjustable elasticity. Within one system, we achieve solid-like affine response, liquid-like non-affine response and a continuous tunability in between. Moreover, the system also exhibits a broadly tunable Poissons ratio from positive to negative values, which is of practical interest for energy absorption and for fracture-resistant materials. Our study reveals a fundamental connection between elasticity and network topology, and demonstrates its practical potential for designing mechanical systems and metamaterials.
We explore the rheology predicted by a recently proposed constitutive model for jammed suspensions of soft elastic particles derived from microscopic dynamics [Cuny et al., arXiv:2102.05938]. Our model predicts that the orientation of the anisotropy
of the microstructure, governed by an interplay between flow vorticity and contact elasticity, plays a key role at yielding and in flow. It generates normal stress differences contributing significantly to the yield criterion and Trouton ratio. It gives rise to non-trivial transients such as stress overshoots in step increases of shear rates, residual stresses after flow cessation and power law decay of the shear rate in creep. Finally, it explains the collapse of storage modulus as measured in parallel superposition for a yielded suspension.
We investigate the effects of helical swimmer shape (i.e., helical pitch angle and tail thickness) on swimming dynamics in a constant viscosity viscoelastic (Boger) fluid via a combination of particle tracking velocimetry, particle image velocimetry
and 3D simulations of the FENE-P model. The 3D printed helical swimmer is actuated in a magnetic field using a custom-built rotating Helmholtz coil. Our results indicate that increasing the swimmer tail thickness and pitch angle enhances the normalized swimming speed (i.e., ratio of swimming speed in the Boger fluid to that of the Newtonian fluid). Strikingly, unlike the Newtonian fluid, the viscoelastic flow around the swimmer is characterized by formation of a front-back flow asymmetry that is characterized by a strong negative wake downstream of the swimmer. Evidently, the strength of the negative wake is inversely proportional to the normalized swimming speed. Three-dimensional simulations of the swimmer with FENE-P model with conditions that match those of experiments, confirm formation of a similar front-back flow asymmetry around the swimmer. Finally, by developing an approximate force balance in the streamwise direction, we show that the contribution of polymer stresses in the interior region of the helix may provide a mechanism for swimming enhancement or diminution in the viscoelastic fluid.
Slender-body approximations have been successfully used to explain many phenomena in low-Reynolds number fluid mechanics. These approximations typically use a line of singularity solutions to represent the flow. These singularities can be difficult t
o implement numerically because they diverge at their origin. Hence people have regularized these singularities to overcome this issue. This regularization blurs the force over a small blob therefore removing the divergent behaviour. However it is unclear how best to regularize the singularities to minimize errors. In this paper we investigate if a line of regularized Stokeslets can describe the flow around a slender body. This is achieved by comparing the asymptotic behaviour of the flow from the line of regularized Stokeslets with the results from slender-body theory. We find that the flow far from the body can be captured if the regularization parameter is proportional to the radius of the slender body. This is consistent with what is assumed in numerical simulations and provides a choice for the proportionality constant. However more stringent requirements must be placed on the regularization blob to capture the near field flow outside a slender body. This inability to replicate the local behaviour indicates that many regularizations cannot satisfy the non-slip boundary conditions on the bodies surface to leading order, with one of the most commonly used regularizations showing an angular dependency of velocity along any cross section. This problem can be overcome with compactly supported blobs { and we construct one such example blob which could be effectively used to simulate the flow around a slender body
The net charge of solvated entities, ranging from polyelectrolytes and biomolecules to charged nanoparticles and membranes, depends on the local dissociation equilibrium of individual ionizable groups. Incorporation of this phenomenon, emph{charge re
gulation}, in theoretical and computational models requires dynamic, configuration-dependent recalculation of surface charges and is therefore typically approximated by assuming constant net charge on particles. Various computational methods exist that address this. We present an alternative, particularly efficient charge regulation Monte Carlo method (CR-MC), which explicitly models the redistribution of individual charges and accurately samples the correct grand-canonical charge distribution. In addition, we provide an open-source implementation in the LAMMPS molecular dynamics (MD) simulation package, resulting in a hybrid MD/CR-MC simulation method. This implementation is designed to handle a wide range of implicit-solvent systems that model discreet ionizable groups or surface sites. The computational cost of the method scales linearly with the number of ionizable groups, thereby allowing accurate simulations of systems containing thousands of individual ionizable sites. By matter of illustration, we use the CR-MC method to quantify the effects of charge regulation on the nature of the polyelectrolyte coil--globule transition and on the effective interaction between oppositely charged nanoparticles.
The action functional for a linear elastic medium with dislocations is given. The equations of motion following from this action reproduce the Peach-K{o}hler and Lorentzian forces experienced by dislocations. The explicit expressions for singular and
finite parts of the self-force acting on a curved dislocation are derived in the framework of linear theory of elasticity of an isotropic medium. The velocity of dislocation is assumed to be arbitrary but less than the shear wave velocity. The nonrelativistic and ultrarelativistic limits are investigated. In the ultrarelativistic limit, the explicit expression for the leading contribution to the self-force is obtained. In the case of slowly moving dislocations, the effective equations of motion derived in the present paper reproduce the known results.
Recent experiments have found that applied electric fields can induce motion of skyrmions in chiral nematic liquid crystals. To understand the magnitude and direction of the induced motion, we develop a coarse-grained approach to describe dynamics of
skyrmions, similar to our groups previous work on the dynamics of disclinations. In this approach, we represent a localized excitation in terms of a few macroscopic degrees of freedom, including the position of the excitation and the orientation of the background director. We then derive the Rayleigh dissipation function, and hence the equations of motion, in terms of these macroscopic variables. We demonstrate this theoretical approach for 1D motion of a sine-Gordon soliton, and then extend it to 2D motion of a skyrmion. Our results show that skyrmions move in a direction perpendicular to the induced tilt of the background director. When the applied field is removed, skyrmions move in the opposite direction but not with equal magnitude, and hence the overall motion may be rectified.
Growth-induced pattern formations in curved film-substrate structures have attracted extensive attentions recently. In most existing literature, the growth tensor is assumed to be homogeneous or piecewise homogeneous. In this paper, we aim at clarify
ing the influence of a growth gradient on pattern formation and pattern evolution in bilayered tubular tissues under plane-strain deformation. In the framework of finite elasticity, a bifurcation condition is derived for a general material model and a generic growth function. Then we suppose that both layers are composed of neo-Hookean materials. In particular, the growth function is assumed to decay linearly from the inner surface or from the outer surface. It is found that a gradient in the growth has a weak effect on the critical state, compared to the homogeneous growth type where both layers share the same growth factor. Furthermore, a finite element model is built to validate the theoretical model and to investigate the post-buckling behaviors. It is found that the associated pattern transition is not controlled by the growth gradient but by the ratio of the shear modulus between two layers. Different morphologies can occur when the modulus ratio is varied. The current analysis could provide useful insight into the influence of a growth gradient on surface instabilities and suggests that a homogeneous growth field may provide a good approximation on interpreting complicated morphological formations in multiple systems.
Turbulence in driven stratified active matter is considered. The relevant parameters characterizing the problem are the Reynolds number Re and an active matter Richardson-like number,R. In the mixing limit,Re>>1, R<<1, we show that the standard Kolmo
gorov energy spectrum 5/3 law is realized. On the other hand, in the stratified limit, Re>>1,R>>1, there is a new turbulence universality class with a 7/5 law. The crossover from one regime to the other is discussed in detail. Experimental predictions and probes are also discussed.
