Understanding the failure of soft materials when faced with stress is crucial for addressing a wide range of engineering issues, from pharmaceutical technology to landslide prevention. Recent research has uncovered a new parameter known as the brittility factor, linking different behaviors of soft materials and simplifying their failure mechanisms. This discovery will aid engineers in designing improved materials to tackle future challenges.
Understanding how soft materials respond to stress is crucial for addressing engineering challenges in fields such as pharmaceutical technology and landslide prevention. Researchers have identified a new parameter called the brittility factor, which simplifies the behavior of soft materials and can lead to the development of better materials.
Professor Simon Rogers and graduate student Krutarth Kamani from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign specialize in studying how soft materials react under stress. They have observed that these materials can exhibit both solid and liquid states simultaneously, a concept essential for various industrial, environmental, and biomedical applications.
Their research also highlighted a lack of communication among scientists in this field, creating a barrier between theoretical understanding and practical applications of soft materials.
Soft materials, whether natural or synthetic, undergo deformation when subjected to pressure, reaching a critical point where they either return to their original form or experience permanent changes like stretching or breaking. This transition is known as yielding and can be either gradual and ductile or abrupt and brittle, according to the researchers.
By considering a spectrum of yielding behaviors instead of categorizing materials as purely brittle or ductile, Rogers’ team developed a continuum model that introduced the brittility factor. This factor plays a crucial role in understanding the failure of soft materials.
The brittility factor determines how much a material deforms permanently under stress, with higher values indicating less deformation before yielding occurs.
The team’s model, built on data from various stress experiments using a rheometer to measure strain responses, has provided valuable insights into soft material behaviors.
Rogers noted, “This study unexpectedly unified various behaviors of soft materials under a common physics framework, shedding light on connections not previously explored.”
This discovery enables researchers to explain why certain materials resist rapid yielding better than others, addressing a longstanding question in the field.
Kamani emphasized, “This single parameter resolves many puzzling observations made by researchers over the years.”
Rogers concluded, “This work signifies a significant milestone in understanding soft material behavior and propels us towards deeper insights and new horizons.”
Funding for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation.
