A course on the mechanics of soft solids

Very much like fluids, many solids are capable of very large deformations, either because they are organized in slender shapes (rods, shells) or because they are constituted by soft materials (gels, rubbers).

Examples are widespread around us (cables, clothes, soda cans, …), in biology (tissues, membranes, plants), food (spaghettis, jelly, cheese) and at many scales (graphene, nanotubes, flexible electronics or tectonics).

The objective of this course is to give a background on the mechanics of deformable solids (elasticity, plasticity, fracture, adhesion and friction) and to illustrate their coupling with other phenomena such as instabilities, fluid flow, tissue growth and collective behavior.

(3 ECTS credits / teaching in English)

Faculty : Matteo Ciccotti (SIMM, ESPCI), Benoît Roman (PMMH, ESPCI)

Syllabus :

1. How to describe deformations : stresses and strains
2. Deformable slender objects : stretching and bending.
3. What is a solid?
4. Engineering point of view on rods and trusses : the linear response.
5. Elastic energy
6. Elastic Instabilities (static and flutter) : avoiding and using them.
7. Fracture: how things break.
8. Fracture and adhesion of slender objects.
9. Soft solids.
10. Plates and shells.

Exam :

The grade will be a combination of 2 parts : grades for  the mini-project  (presentation by the two members of the group) +  an oral examination for each student (discussion of a research article)