By Dr. Arnaud Antkowiak
l’Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France)
http://www.ida.upmc.fr/~antkowiak/))
Monday 9th of December 2013 – 14:00 / Room ME B10
Abstract:
Fluid-structure interactions are usually associated with elastic deformations imparted by the surrounding fluid’s inertia: flag fluttering, vocal folds vibrations, submarine cable oscillations…
At smaller scale though, a new type of fluid-structure interactions can arise. In the presence of interfaces, capillary forces may overcome inertial effects and become responsible for the
deformation imparted to surrounding elastic substrates.
These elastocapillary phenomena are all the more important that the length scales are small and/or the substrate is soft.
This makes them particularly relevant in the biological (neonatal pulmonary collapse, insect adhesion…) or microfabrication contexts.
After reviewing the last developments in the area, I will illustrate some of the elastocapillarity specifics by presenting three experiments exhibiting this particular solid-fluid coupling:
• 3D object formation and dynamical shape selection by impacting a drop over a soft membrane;
• snapping of an elastic arch with capillary forces;
• extraction of a soft object sticking to a liquid surface;
I will particularly focus on the dynamics of these phenomena and their instabilities, making elastocapillary settings clearly distinct from purely elastic or purely fluid systems.
Arnaud Antkowiak (http://www.ida.upmc.fr/~antkowiak/) is an Assistant Professor at Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France). His research interests focus on the violently deformed liquid-gas interfaces, such as torn thin liquid films, drop splashes or liquid fragmentation. He is also interested in capillarity-induced deformations of soft and/or thin elastic objects, and is currently investigating the role of these elastocapillary interactions in biological systems.