Softening and yielding of soft glassy materials

Solids deform and fluids flow, but soft glassy materials, such as emulsions, foams, suspensions, and pastes, exhibit an intricate mix of solid- and liquid-like behavior. While much progress has been made to understand their elastic (small strain) and flow (infinite strain) properties, such understanding is lacking for the softening and yielding...

Stress relaxation in viscous soft spheres

We report the results of molecular dynamics simulations of stress relaxation tests in athermal viscous soft sphere packings close to their unjamming transition. By systematically and simultaneously varying both the amplitude of the applied strain step and the pressure of the initial condition, we access both linear and nonlinear response...

Beyond linear elasticity: Jammed solids at finite shear strain and rate

The shear response of soft solids can be modeled with linear elasticity, provided the forcing is slow and weak. Both of these approximations must break down when the material loses rigidity, such as in foams and emulsions at their (un)jamming point-suggesting that the window of linear elastic response near jamming is exceedingly narrow. Yet...