Related papers: Topological changes at the jamming and gel transit…
Viscoelastic and thermodynamic properties of transient gels formed by telechelic polymers are studied on the basis of the transient network theory that takes account of the correlation among polymer chains via network junctions. The global…
Viscoelastic and thermodynamic properties of transient gels comprised of telechelic polymers are theoretically studied. We extend classical theories of transient networks so that correlations among polymer chains through the network…
We study the structure and dynamics of a transient network composed of droplets of microemulsion connected by telechelic polymers. The polymer induces a bridging attraction between droplets without changing their shape. A viscoelastic…
The concept of network immunity, i.e., the robustness of the network connectivity after a random deletion of edges or vertices, has been investigated in biological or communication networks. We apply this concept to a self-assembling,…
Polymerization and formation of crosslinked polymer networks are important processes in manufacturing, materials fabrication, and in the case of hydrated polymer networks, synthesis of biomedical materials, drug delivery, and tissue…
Thermo-mechanical properties of polymer networks depend on functionality of the monomer precursors -- an association that is frequently exploited in materials science. We use molecular simulations to generate spatial networks from…
In this thesis the formation and properties of a polymer gel on and at a surface are investigated. The gel under investigation is defined as a three-dimensional network of "phantom" macromolecules that form permanent links with one another…
Adding dynamic bonds in polymer networks enables reprocessing and recycling; however the full impact of reversible bonds on dynamic network mechanics remains unclear. We build model dynamic networks and observe substantial deviations from…
The effect of topology on the collapse transition and instantaneous shape of an energy polydisperse polymer (a model heteropolymer) is studied by means of computer simulations. In particular, we consider three different chain topology,…
Molecular dynamics simulations have been employed to study the formation of a physical (thermoreversible) gel by amphiphilic A-B-A triblock copolymers in aqueous solution. In order to mimic the structure of hydrogel-forming polypeptides…
Formation of a molecular network from multifunctional precursors is modelled with a random graph process. The random graph model favours reactivity for monomers that are positioned close in the network topology, and disfavours reactivity…
We probe the mechanisms at work in the build-up of thermoreversible gel networks, with the help of hybrid gelatin gels containing a controlled density of irreversible, covalent crosslinks (CL), which we quench below the physical gelation…
In order to study the viscoelastic properties of certain complex fluids which are described in terms of a multiconnected transient network we have developed a convenient model system composed of microemulsion droplets linked by telechelic…
We investigate the efficiency of gelation and network formation in telechelic star polymer melt, where the tips of polymer arms are dipoles while rest of the monomers are uncharged. Our work is motivated by the experimental observations…
Thermoreversible sol-gel transitions in solutions of rod-like associating polymers are analyzed by computer simulations and by mean field models. The sol-gel transition is determined by the divergence of the cluster weight average. The…
The structural complexity of soft gels is at the origin of a versatile mechanical response that allows for large deformations, controlled elastic recovery and toughness in the same material. A limit to exploiting the potential of such…
Biological molecules can form hydrogen bonds between nearby residues, leading to helical secondary structures. The associated reduction of configurational entropy leads to a temperature dependence of this effect: the "helix-coil…
The network topology can be described by the number of nodes and the interconnections among them. The degree of a node in a network is the number of connections it has to other nodes and the degree distribution is the probability…
Hybrid molecular dynamics/Monte Carlo simulations used to study melts of unentangled, thermoreversibly associating supramolecular polymers. In this first of a series of papers, we describe and validate a model that is effective in…
The swelling dynamics of polymer gels are characterized by the (collective) diffusion coefficient $D$ of the polymer network. Here, we measure the temperature dependence of $D$ of polymer gels with controlled homogeneous network structures…