Controlling Liquid Spreading Using Microfabricated Undercut Edges (Adv. Mater. 16/2013)

Finding Undercut-Free Parting Directions for Polygons with Curved Edges

We consider the problem of whether a given geometry can be molded in a two-part, rigid, reusable mold with opposite removal directions. We describe an efficient algorithm for solving the opposite direction moldability problem for a 2D “polygon” bounded by edges that may be either straight or curved. We introduce a structure, the normal graph of the polygon, that represents the range of normals ...

Metamaterials: Snapping Mechanical Metamaterials under Tension (Adv. Mater. 39/2015).

By exploiting snap-through instabilities, D. Pasini and co-workers design a damage-tolerant mechanical metamaterial that snaps sequentially under tension, thereby accommodating a very large deformation up to 150%. On page 5931, they describe how the nonlinear mechanical response of the metamaterial can be robustly programmed by tuning the architecture of its unit cell.

Liquid fuel microcombustor using microfabricated multiplexed electrospray sources

The use of hydrocarbons is very appealing for the realization of high energy density power sources, so long as the fuel can be stored in the liquid phase. As a result, except for the most volatile hydrocarbons, a miniaturized combustor must rely on a good design of the fuel atomizer, which should yield small, rapidly evaporating droplets to generate the fuel vapor promptly, mix it with the oxid...

Microfabricated pillar array columns for liquid chromatography

Stability of liquid sheet edges

Accelerating edges of thin liquid sheets are ubiquitous and are known to experience a longitudinal along-the-edge instability, which often leads to their break-up and atomization. The fundamental physical mechanisms of this instability are studied analytically in the quasisteady regime, which admits a concise modeling. It is discovered that the classical Rayleigh–Taylor mechanism is substantial...