arXiv subjects

Oleg Gendelman

Publications and source records attributed to Oleg Gendelman.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Predicting the Brittle-to-Ductile Transition in Amorphous Polymers

Brittle-ductile transition (BDT) is an important characteristic of amorphous (and semicrystalline) polymers. For a given strain rate, at temperatures above BDT, the polymers exhibit strain softening followed by yield and strain hardening, while at temperatures below BDT, the same materials exhibit brittle failure at relatively low strains. Surprisingly, today there is no simple model describing BDT as a function of polymer chemistry, sample history, deformation type, and strain rate. Experimental data suggest that BDT is often, though not always, associated with the beta-transition. We formulate a simple scalar model to describe the visco-elasto-plastic shear stress-strain curves as functions of temperature and strain rate. We also show that within this model, there is always an upper bound on the strain rate where the material can have a uniform viscoplastic flow; this upper bound is taken to represent the BDT. We stipulate that this upper bound is inversely proportional to the Johari-Goldstein beta-relaxation time. Using our "general" Sanchez-Lacombe "two-state, two-(time)scale" (SL-TS2) model, we compute the BDT for three polymers (polystyrene, poly(methylmethacrylate), and poly(vinylchloride)) and found a good agreement with experimental data.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2025

General Two-Parameter Model of Alpha-Relaxation in Glasses

In the vicinity of the glass transition, the characteristic relaxation time (e.g., the alpha-relaxation time in dielectric spectroscopy) of a glass-former exhibits a strongly super-Arrhenius temperature dependence, as compared to the classical Arrhenius behavior at high temperatures. A comprehensive description of both regions thus requires five parameters. Here, we demonstrate that many glass-formers exhibit a universal scaling, with only two material-specific parameters setting the timescale and the temperature scale; the other three being universal constants. Furthermore, we show that the master curve can be described by the recently developed two-state, two-(time) scale (TS2) theory (Soft Matter 2020, 16, 810) and regress the universal TS2 parameters. We also show the connection between the TS2 model and the Hall-Wolynes elastic relaxation theory.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2024

Dynamical integrity of the safe basins in a problem of forced escape

This paper explores the use of the Approximation of Isolated Resonance (AIR) method for determining the safe basins (SBs) in the problem of escape from a potential well. The study introduces a novel approach to capture the location and the shape of the SBs and establish their erosion profiles. The research highlights the concept of "true" safe basins, which remain invariant with phase shifts, a critical factor often faced in real-world applications. A cubic polynomial potential serves as the benchmark to illustrate the proposed method.

math.DS↗

arXiv2023

Hysteresis resulting from Lennard-Jones interactions

The fundamental mechanism of hysteresis in the quasistatic limit of multi-stable systems is associated with transitions of the system from one local minimum of the potential energy to another. In this scenario, as system parameters are (quasistatically) varied, the transition is prompted when a saddle-node bifurcation eliminates the minimum where the system resides in. The objective of the present work is to specify this generic mechanism for systems of interacting particles assuming a natural single-well (Lennard-Jones) interaction potential for each pair of particles. We show multi-stability and present details of hysteresis scenarios with the associated bifurcations and transitions in a case study of constrained four-degrees-of-freedom four particle systems on the plane.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2023

Nonlinear dynamics and bifurcations of a planar undulating magnetic microswimmer

Swimming micro-organisms such as flagellated bacteria and sperm cells have fascinating locomotion capabilities. Inspired by their natural motion, there is an ongoing effort to develop artificial robotic nano-swimmers for potential in-body biomedical applications. A leading method for actuation of nano-swimmers is by applying a time-varying external magnetic field. Such systems have rich and nonlinear dynamics that calls for simple fundamental models. A previous work studied forward motion of a simple two-link model with passive elastic joint, assuming small-amplitude planar oscillations of the magnetic field about a constant direction. In this work, we found that there exists a faster, backward motion of the swimmer with very rich dynamics. By relaxing the small-amplitude assumption, we analyze the multiplicity of periodic solutions, as well as their bifurcations, symmetry breaking, and stability transitions. We have also found that the net displacement and/or mean swimming speed are maximized for optimal choices of various parameters. Asymptotic calculations are performed for the bifurcation condition and the swimmer's mean speed. The results may enable significantly improving the design aspects of magnetically-actuated robotic microswimmer.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2023

Effects of Asymmetric Cooling and Surface Wettability on the Orientation of the Freezing Tip

Freezing of water droplets placed on the bare and superhydrophobic surfaces of polymer wedges are studied both experimentally and computationally. Two-dimensional numerical calculations of the transient temperature field in a chilled polymer wedge show that the direction of heat flux from the droplet through the thermal contact region with the wedge differs significantly from the normal to the wedge surface. This is the physical cause of the recently observed asymmetric cooling of the droplet. A novel approximate computational model is proposed that takes into account the variable area of the water freezing front in the droplet. This model gives a quantitative estimate of the faster freezing of the droplet on the bare surface. The obtained numerical results agree with the data of laboratory experiments. The velocity of the crystallization front and the droplet deformation including the so-called freezing tip formation are monitored in the experiment. The direction of the freezing cone axis appears to be noticeably different for the cases of bare and superhydrophobic wedge surfaces. This deviation is explained by the fact that the direction of the freezing cone axis is controlled by the local direction of the heat flux. For a hydrophobic wedge surface, the deviation of the freezing tip from the vertical is smaller, because the reduced thermal contact area reduces the influence of the heat flux direction at the wedge surface.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2021

Approximation of potential function in the problem of forced escape

The paper addresses an escape of a classical particle from a potential well under harmonic forcing. Most dangerous/efficient escape dynamics reveals itself in conditions of 1:1 resonance and can be described in the framework of isolated resonant (IR) approximation. The latter requires reformulation of the problem in terms of action-angle (AA) variables, available only for a handful of the model potentials. The paper suggests approximation of realistic generic potentials by low-order polynomial functions, admissible for the AA transformation, with possible truncation. To illustrate the idea, we first formulate the AA transformation and solve the escape problem in the IR approximation for a generic quartic potential. Then, the model problem for dynamic pull-in in microelectromechanical system (MEMS) is analyzed. The model electrostatic potential is approximated by the quartic polynomials (globally and locally), and quality of predicting the escape thresholds is assessed numerically. Most accurate predictions are delivered by global $L^2$-optimal heuristic approximation.

math.DS↗

arXiv2021

Analytic exploration of safe basins in a benchmark problem of forced escape

The paper presents an analytical approach for predicting the safe basins (SB) in a plane of initial conditions (IC) for escape of classical particle from the potential well under harmonic forcing. The solution is based on the approximation of isolated resonance, which reduces the dynamics to conservative flow on a two-dimensional resonance manifold (RM). Such a reduction allows easy distinction between escaping and non-escaping ICs. As a benchmark potential, we choose a common parabolic-quartic well with truncation at varying energy levels. The method allows accurate predictions of the SB boundaries for relatively low forcing amplitudes. The derived SBs demonstrate an unexpected set of properties, including decomposition into two disjoint zones in the IC plane for a certain range of parameters. The latter peculiarity stems from two qualitatively different escape mechanisms on the RM. For higher forcing values, the accuracy of the analytic predictions decreases to some extent due to the inaccuracies of the basic isolated resonance approximation, but mainly due to the erosion of the SB boundaries caused by the secondary resonances. Nevertheless, even in this case the analytic approximation can serve as a viable initial guess for subsequent numeric estimation of the SB boundaries.

math.DS↗

arXiv2020

Giant Amplification of Small Perturbations in Frictional Amorphous Solid

Catastrophic events in Nature can be often triggered by small perturbations, with "remote triggering" of earthquakes being an important example. Here we present a mechanism for the giant amplification of small perturbations that is expected to be generic in systems whose dynamics is not derivable from a Hamiltonian. We offer a general discussion of the typical instabilities involved (being oscillatory with an exponential increase of noise) and examine in detail the normal forms that determine the relevant dynamics. The high sensitivity to external perturbations is explained for systems with and without dissipation. Numerical examples are provided using the dynamics of frictional granular matter. Finally we point out the relationship of the presently discussed phenomenon to the highly topical issue of "exceptional points" in quantum models with non-Hermitian Hamiltonians.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2019

Universal Scaling Laws for Shear Induced Dilation in Frictional Granular Media

Compressed frictional granular matter cannot flow without dilation. Upon forced shearing to generate flow, the amount of dilation may depend on the initial preparation and a host of material variables. On the basis of both experiments and numerical simulations we show that as a result of training by repeated compression-decompression cycles the amount of dilation induced by shearing the system depends only on the shear rate and on the (pre-shearing) packing fraction. Relating the rheological response to structural properties allows us to derive a scaling law for the amount of dilation after $n$ cycles of compression-decompression. The resulting scaling law has a universal exponent that for trained systems is independent of the inter-granules force laws, friction parameters and strain rate. The amplitude of the scaling law is analytically computable, and it depends only on the shear rate and the asymptotic packing fraction.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2019

Noise Amplification in Frictional Systems: Oscillatory Instabilities

It was discovered recently that frictional granular materials can exhibit an important mechanism for instabilities, i.e the appearance of pairs of complex eigenvalues in their stability matrix. The consequence is an oscillatory exponential growth of small perturbations which are tamed by dynamical nonlinearities. The amplification can be giant, many orders of magnitude, and it ends with a catastrophic system-spanning plastic event. Here we follow up on this discovery, explore the scaling laws characterizing the onset of the instability, the scenarios of the development of the instability with and without damping, and the nature of the eventual system spanning events. The possible relevance to earthquake physics and to the transition from static to dynamic friction is discussed.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2019

Mixed global dynamics of forced vibro-impact oscillator with Coulomb friction

The paper revisits a well-known model of forced vibro-impact oscillator with Amonton-Coulomb friction. In vast majority of the existing studies, this model included also viscous friction, and its global dynamics in the state space is governed by periodic, quasiperiodic or chaotic attractors. We demonstrate that removal of the viscous friction leads to qualitative modification of the global dynamics. Namely, the state space is divided into the regions with "regular" attraction to the aforementioned special solutions, and the regions with profoundly Hamiltonian dynamics. The latter regions contain structures typical for forced Hamiltonian systems: stability islands, extended non-attractive chaotic regions etc. We prove that such local Hamiltonian behavior should occur for phase trajectories with non-vanishing velocity. Stability analysis for the periodic orbits confirms the above statement. It is demonstrated that similar mixed global dynamics can be observed in broader class of models.

math.DS↗

arXiv2019

Oscillatory Instabilities in Frictional Granular Matter

Frictional granular matter is shown to be fundamentally different in its plastic responses to external strains from generic glasses and amorphous solids without friction. While regular glasses exhibit plastic instabilities due to a vanishing of a real eigenvalue of the Hessian matrix, frictional granular materials can exhibit a previously unnoticed additional mechanism for instabilities, i.e. the appearance of a pair of complex eigenvalues leading to oscillatory exponential growth of perturbations which are tamed by dynamical nonlinearities. This fundamental difference appears crucial for the understanding of plasticity and failure in frictional granular materials. The possible relevance to earthquake physics is discussed.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2017

Reply to Comment on `What Determines the Static Force Chains in Stressed Granular Media?'

The formalism proposed in Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 078001 (2016) for determination of the normal and tangential inter-particle forces in frictional disks from visual data was criticized in a comment to that paper. However the theory developed in the original publication is aimed at finding the forces when provided with accurate measurements while the comment addresses a different problem, being the statistics of forces in a configuration with uncertainty of the relevant parameters. We address this difference in perspectives and point out that even with experimental errors one can improve the results using an iterative procedure proposed in Phys. Rev. E. Rapid Communication, 93, 060601(R) (2016).

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2016

Compact localized states and flatband generators in one dimension

Flat bands (FB) are strictly dispersionless bands in the Bloch spectrum of a periodic lattice Hamiltonian, recently observed in a variety of photonic and dissipative condensate networks. FB Hamiltonians are finetuned networks, still lacking a comprehensive generating principle. We introduce a FB generator based on local network properties. We classify FB networks through the properties of compact localized states (CLS) which are exact FB eigenstates and occupy $U$ unit cells. We obtain the complete two-parameter FB family of two-band $d=1$ networks with nearest unit cell interaction and $U=2$. We discover a novel high symmetry sawtooth chain with identical hoppings in a transverse dc field, easily accessible in experiments. Our results pave the way towards a complete description of FBs in networks with more bands and in higher dimensions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Determining the Inter-Particle Force-Laws in Amorphous Solids from a Visual Image

We consider the problem of how to determine the force laws in an amorphous system of interacting particles. Given the positions of the centers of mass of the constituent particles we propose a new algorithm to determine the inter-particle force-laws. Having $n$ different types of constituents we determine the coefficients in the Laurent polynomials for the $n(n+1)/2$ possibly different force-laws. A visual providing the particle positions in addition to a measurement of the pressure is all that is required. The algorithm proposed includes a part that can correct for experimental errors in the positions of the particles. Such a correction of unavoidable measurement errors is expected to benefit many experiments in the field.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2016

What determines static force chains in stressed granular media?

The determination of the normal and transverse (frictional) inter-particle forces within a granular medium is a long standing, taunting, and yet unresolved problem. We present a new formalism which employs the knowledge of the external forces and the orientations of contacts between particles (of any given sizes), to compute all the inter-particle forces. Having solved this problem we exemplify the efficacy of the formalism showing that the force chains in such systems are determined by an expansion in the eigenfunctions of a newly defined operator.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2015

A Generalized Electrowetting Equation: Its Derivation and Consequences

The thermodynamics of electrowetting is treated. A general equation of electrowetting is derived from the first principles. It is demonstrated that the well-known Lippmann Equation describes a particular case of electrowetting when the radial derivative of the capacitance of the double layer is constant. The apparent contact angle of electrowetting depends on the gradient of capacity of a double layer in the vicinity of the triple line. The role of the area adjacent to the triple line in constituting the equilibrium apparent contact angle of electrowetting is emphasized.

physics.chem-ph↗