Abstract: A hydrogel is a network of polymeric chains hosting a large amount of the single solvent, namely, water. The high degree of hydration not only endows hydrogels with desired attributes such as superb biocompatibility but ...

Abstract: Guided by the experimental observations in the literature, this paper discusses two possible modes of defect growth in soft solids for which the size-dependent fracture mechanics is not always applicable. One is omni-directional ...

Abstract: In the previous studies by the authors and others, it was demonstrated that there are two possible defect growth modes and a characteristic material length for any soft material. For a pre-existing defect smaller than the ...

Abstract: Dielectric elastomer (DE) can undergo large deformation when subjected to external forces or voltage, leading to the variation of the capacitance. A novel DE sensor is proposed to detect compressive force. This sensor ...

Abstract: The failure behavior of the syntactic foams is investigated based on a threedimensional (3D) micromechanical finite element (FE) model, by varying the volume fraction, the wall thickness of the hollow particles, and the ...

Abstract: High voltage is required for the existing dielectric elastomer (DE) actuators to convert electrical energy to mechanical energy. However, maintaining high voltage on DE membranes can cause various failures, such as current ...

Abstract: Various applications of dielectric elastomers (DEs) have been realized in recent years due to their lightweight, low cost, large actuation and fast response. In this paper, experiments and simulations are performed on the ...

Abstract: As fiber-reinforced polymer matrix composites are often cured from stress-free high temperature, when subjected to ambient temperature, both the mismatch of the coefficient of linear thermal expansion between the fiber and ...

Abstract: Microbond tests have been widely used for studying the interfacial mechanical properties of fiber-reinforced composites. However, experimental results reveal that the interfacial shear strength (IFSS) depends on the length ...

Abstract: In this paper, we review constitutive models for soft materials. We specifically focus on physically based models accounting for hyperelasticity, visco-hyperelasticity, and damage phenomena. For completeness, we include ...