@article {2014, title = {Buckling dynamics of a solvent-stimulated stretched elastomeric sheet}, number = {Soft Matter;volume 10; issue 16; pages 2800-2804;}, year = {2014}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, abstract = {When stretched uniaxially, a thin elastic sheet may exhibit buckling. The occurrence of buckling depends on the geometrical properties of the sheet and the magnitude of the applied strain. Here we show that an elastomeric sheet initially stable under uniaxial stretching can destabilize when exposed to a solvent that swells the elastomer. We demonstrate experimentally and computationally that the features of the buckling pattern depend on the magnitude of stretching, and this observation offers a new way for controlling the shape of a swollen homogeneous thin sheet.}, doi = {10.1039/c3sm52941j}, url = {http://urania.sissa.it/xmlui/handle/1963/34967}, author = {Alessandro Lucantonio and Matthieu Roch{\'e} and Paola Nardinocchi and Howard A. Stone} } @article {2014, title = {Swelling dynamics of a thin elastomeric sheet under uniaxial pre-stretch}, number = {Journal of Applied Physics;volume 115; issue 8; article number 083505;}, year = {2014}, publisher = {American Institute of Physics}, abstract = {It has been demonstrated experimentally that pre-stretch affects the swelling of an elastomeric membrane when it is exposed to a solvent. We study theoretically the one-dimensional swelling of a pre-stretched thin elastomeric sheet, bonded to an impermeable rigid substrate, to quantify the influence of pre-stretch. We show that the solvent uptake increases when pre-stretch increases, both at equilibrium and during the swelling transient, where it exhibits two different scaling regimes. The coupling between the solvent uptake and pre-stretch may be practically exploited to design soft actuators where the swelling-induced deformations can be controlled by varying the pre-stretch.}, doi = {10.1063/1.4866576}, url = {http://urania.sissa.it/xmlui/handle/1963/35113}, author = {Alessandro Lucantonio and Paola Nardinocchi and Howard A. Stone} } @article {2014, title = {Swelling-induced and controlled curving in layered gel beams}, number = {Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences;volume 470; issue 2171;}, year = {2014}, publisher = {Royal Society of London}, abstract = {We describe swelling-driven curving in originally straight and non-homogeneous beams. We present and verify a structural model of swollen beams, based on a new point of view adopted to describe swelling-induced deformation processes in bilayered gel beams, that is based on the split of the swelling-induced deformation of the beam at equilibrium into two components, both depending on the elastic properties of the gel. The method allows us to: (i) determine beam stretching and curving, once assigned the characteristics of the solvent bath and of the non-homogeneous beam, and (ii) estimate the characteristics of non-homogeneous flat gel beams in such a way as to obtain, under free-swelling conditions, three-dimensional shapes. The study was pursued by means of analytical, semi-analytical and numerical tools; excellent agreement of the outcomes of the different techniques was found, thus confirming the strength of the method.}, doi = {10.1098/rspa.2014.0467}, url = {http://urania.sissa.it/xmlui/handle/1963/34987}, author = {Alessandro Lucantonio and Paola Nardinocchi and Matteo Pezzulla} }