title: Elastocapillary bending of microfibers around liquid droplets.
abstract: We report on the elastocapillary deformation of flexible microfibers in contact with liquid droplets. A fiber is observed to bend more as the size of the contacting droplet is increased. At a critical droplet size, proportional to the bending elastocapillary length, the fiber is seen to spontaneously wind around the droplet. To rationalize these observations, we invoke a minimal model based on elastic beam theory, and find agreement with experimental data. Further energetic considerations provide a consistent prediction for the winding criterion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. W., Hamilton, ON L8S 4M1, Canada. dalnoki@mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: Rafael D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Schulman
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie Théorique, UMR CNRS Gulliver 7083, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Amir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Porat
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. W., Hamilton, ON L8S 4M1, Canada. dalnoki@mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: Kathleen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Charlesworth
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. W., Hamilton, ON L8S 4M1, Canada. dalnoki@mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fortais
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie Théorique, UMR CNRS Gulliver 7083, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, 75005 Paris, France and Global Station for Soft Matter, Global Institution for Collaborative Research and Education, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0808, Japan.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Salez
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie Théorique, UMR CNRS Gulliver 7083, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Elie
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Raphaël
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. W., Hamilton, ON L8S 4M1, Canada. dalnoki@mcmaster.ca and Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie Théorique, UMR CNRS Gulliver 7083, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Kari
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dalnoki-Veress