The modus operandi of “modeling weeks” is explained and illustrated using a classical modeling week problem of subjecting coconuts to an external pressure before splitting them open, in the hope that the coconut meat will then separate easily from the shell. A range of modeling approaches is considered, and a poroelastic model is posed that allows the key problem parameters to be identified and...

In this work a continuum model for high frequency poroelastic longitudinal waves in hydrogels is presented. A viscoelastic force describing the interaction between the polymer network and the bounded water present in such materials is introduced. The model is tested by means of ultrasound wave speed and attenuation measurements in polyvinylalcohol hydrogel samples. The theory and experiments sh...

Measurements and predictions have been made of the absorption coefficient and the surface acoustic impedance of poroelastic plates clamped in a large impedance tube and separated from the rigid termination by an air gap. The measured and predicted absorption coefficient and surface impedance spectra exhibit low frequency peaks. The peak frequencies observed in the absorption coefficient are clo...

In this work, we consider the spatial homogenization of a coupled transport and fluid-structure interaction model, to the end of deriving a system of effective equations describing the flow, elastic deformation and transport in an active poroelastic medium. The 'active' nature of the material results from a morphoelastic response to a chemical stimulant, in which the growth time scale is strong...

Most often, autonomous robots maintain group formations by using global information such as the position of the group leader or even the position of all robots inside the formation. Alternative approaches to autonomous robot formations have considered local information, which is more realistic but presents some drawbacks such as troop deformation. In this paper we perform a step forward in loca...