Transparent Experiments: Releasing Data from Mechanical Tests on Three Dimensional Hydrogel Sphere Packings

TL;DR

This paper presents detailed experiments on the mechanics of 3D hydrogel sphere packings, measuring contact forces under various deformations, with data openly shared for further research.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive methodology and dataset for studying contact forces in soft particle packings under different mechanical loads.

Findings

Quantified contact force evolution during compression and shear.

Published a dataset of experimental measurements.

Demonstrated experimental setup for soft particle mechanics.

Abstract

We describe here experiments on the mechanics of hydrogel particle packings from the Behringer lab, performed between 2012 and 2015. These experiments quantify the evolution of all contact forces inside soft particle packings exposed to compression, shear, and the intrusion of a large intruder. The experimental set-ups and processes are presented and the data are concomitantly published in a repository.