The widespread use of plastic bags in routine blood bank procedures has been attended by concern about the accumulation of substances from the plastic containers in the blood products and the biologic effects of these substances (1-11). Most poly(vinyl chloride) plastic bags contain di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) to make them pliable enough to prevent breakage (2, 5). This material has been s...

It is easy to visually distinguish a ceramic knife from one made of steel, a leather jacket from one made of denim, and a plush toy from one made of plastic. Most studies of material appearance have focused on the estimation of specific material properties such as albedo or surface gloss, and as a consequence, almost nothing is known about how we recognize material categories like leather or pl...

We analyze in detail the atomistic response of a model amorphous material submitted to plastic shear in the athermal, quasi-static limit. After a linear stress-strain behavior, the system undergoes a noisy plastic flow. We show that the plastic flow is spatially heterogeneous. Two kinds of plastic events occur in the system: quadrupolar localized rearrangements, and shear bands. The analysis of...

Over the past decade, many computational studies have explored the mechanics of normal indentation. Quantitative relationships have been well established between the load–displacement hysteresis response and material properties. By contrast, very few studies have investigated broad quantitative aspects of the effects of material properties, especially plastic deformation characteristics, on the...