GRASP  

The project SMILE — Soft Matter Intelligence and Learning for Engineered Materials, submitted in collaboration with our colleagues at the University of Lorraine, has been officially selected. This funding marks a major milestone in our long-standing partnership with Prof. Kiesgen’s team, focused on granular matter and complex fluids.

https://www.graspion.be

Researchers from GRASP (Group for Research and Applications in Statistical Physics) have unveiled new insights into the mechanics of flexible magnetic assemblies in their recent publication in Physical Review E. The paper was selected by the editors as an Editor’s Suggestion, highlighting its particular interest and significance within the journal.

Read the full article in Physical Review E (Editor’s Suggestion): https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/pznx-lrxq

Most of us have heard of the Cheerios Effect: the way floating objects attract or repel on a liquid surface. Or, how your cereals clump together in your morning bowl! 

In this work, we take a step further and introduce what we call the Pringles Effect: by carefully designing the shape of floating particles looking like Pringles crisps, we can program whether they self-assemble side by side or end to end. Using theory and experiments with 3D-printed “Pringles-like” ellipses, described as capillary quadrupoles, we demonstrate how complex capillary interactions can be harnessed to construct more intricate mesoscale structures.