Guided mechanical self-assembly of bubbles in fiber arrays

2024/09/30 by Marwan Chammouma, Manon Jouanlanne, Chammouma, Marwan +9
Engineering · #FOS: Physical sciences #Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2409.20114

openalex publication_date 2024/09/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

Spontaneous mechanical self-assembly of monodisperse bubbles generally leads to disordered foams at low density: producing crystalline structures such as Kelvin foams has proven to be challenging experimentally, despite them being a minimum of energy. Here we show how bubbling in different fiber arrays controls foam architectures through a guided mechanical self-assembly. Analyzing X-ray tomography scans of solidified polymer foams using Steinhardt's parameters highlights clear signatures of Kelvin and hexagonal close packing crystalline foams, opening a novel route towards ordered hierarchical materials.

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