Stiffening of an active elastic solid

This work deals with the mechanical properties of an active elastic solid defined as a two-dimensional network of active stochastic particles interacting by nonlinear hard springs. It is numerically found that when activity in the system is turned on, the active solid stiffens. Interestingly, the active forces individually acting along the solid are stochastic; thus no preferred direction is imposed. This effect could be potentially used to construct novel active materials whose mechanical properties could be tuned according to their needs.