Materials geomimicry is the new emerging area interfacing soft matter mechanics, geomaterials, and environmental sustainability. We published two manuscripts this Fall that pushes the boundaries of understanding natural earth materials as a new class of soft matter.
Origins of complexity in the rheology of Soft Earth suspensions published in Nature Communications highlights a new “Soft Earth” model to understand mechanical properties of heterogenous soft matter systems and generate insights into engineering soft particulates system with interaction-controlled brittle-ductile failure transition.
Soft matter mechanics of baseball’s rubbing mud published in PNAS solved (kind of..) the mystery behind using natural mud as de-glossing material on baseball surfaces and demonstrates a multiscale mechanical framework towards geoinspired sustainable materials design.