Importance and methods to control, vary, and characterize mud strength for studying locomotion
Abstract
Animals and robots encounter mud at the water-land interface. Like sand, mud can stay solid or flow like a fluid. Unlike sand, the yield strength of mud at which solid-fluid transitions occur depends on not only the amount of solid relative to fluid (water in mud, air in dry sand), but also how much coarse grains and fine clay are within the solid. Despite understanding of locomotion on/within dry sand dominated by coarse grains with repulsive normal forces and friction, little is known for mud dominated by fine clay with strong cohesion. Here, we developed methods to prepare uniform mud of controlled, variable yield strength and characterize and track its drift from water evaporation. Compared to other flowable substrates, mud strength measured by upward force during penetration is weaker and can vary more, and mud sticks more during extraction to pull downward, making it more challenging for locomotion.
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BibTeX
@misc{ramesh2026importance,
title = {{Importance and methods to control, vary, and characterize mud strength for studying locomotion}},
author = {Divya Ramesh and Gargi Sadalgekar and Qiyuan Fu and Zachary Souders and Jack Rao and Chen Li},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.00563},
eprint = {2609.00563},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.00563},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Importance and methods to control, vary, and characterize mud strength for studying locomotion
AU - Divya Ramesh
AU - Gargi Sadalgekar
AU - Qiyuan Fu
AU - Zachary Souders
AU - Jack Rao
AU - Chen Li
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.00563
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.00563
AB - Animals and robots encounter mud at the water-land interface. Like sand, mud can stay solid or flow like a fluid. Unlike sand, the yield strength of mud at which solid-fluid transitions occur depends on not only the amount of solid relative to fluid (water in mud, air in dry sand), but also how much coarse grains and fine clay are within the solid. Despite understanding of locomotion on/within dry sand dominated by coarse grains with repulsive normal forces and friction, little is known for mud dominated by fine clay with strong cohesion. Here, we developed methods to prepare uniform mud of controlled, variable yield strength and characterize and track its drift from water evaporation. Compared to other flowable substrates, mud strength measured by upward force during penetration is weaker and can vary more, and mud sticks more during extraction to pull downward, making it more challenging for locomotion.
ER -