Solid drops: Large capillary deformations of immersed elastic rods

Serge Mora (1) , Corrado Maurini (2) , Ty Phou (1) , Jean Marc Fromental (1) , Basile Audoly (2) , Yves Pomeau (3)

1 L2C - Laboratoire Charles Coulomb
2 DALEMBERT - Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert
3 Department of Mathematics [University of Arizona]

Under the effect of surface tension a blob of liquid adopts a spherical shape when immersed in another fluid. We demonstrate experimentally that soft, centimeter-size elastic solids can exhibit a similar behavior: when immersed into a liquid, a gel having a low elastic modulus undergoes large, reversible deformations. We analyze three fundamental types of deformations of a slender elastic solid driven by surface stress, depending on the shape of its cross-section: a circular elastic cylinder shortens in the longitudinal direction and stretches transversally; the sharp edges of a square based prism get rounded off as its cross-sections tend to become circular; a slender, triangular based prism bends. These experimental results are confronted to analysis and non-linear simulations of neo-Hookean solids deformed by surface tension, and are found in good agreement.

Domaines: Mécanique des solides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des solides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des structures [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des structures [physics.class-ph]; Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]

Serge Mora, Corrado Maurini, Ty Phou, Jean Marc Fromental, Basile Audoly, et al.. Solid drops: Large capillary deformations of immersed elastic rods. 2013. ⟨hal-00842852v1⟩