@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}
}
