A fundamental challenge regarding disordered solids is predicting macroscopic yield—the point at which elastic behaviour changes to plastic behaviour—from the microscopic arrangements of constituent particles.
Soft, disordered, micro-structured materials are ubiquitous in nature and industry, and are different from ordinary fluids or solids, with unusual, interesting static and flow properties. The transition from fluid to solid—at the so-called jamming density—features a multitude of complex mechanisms,...