Related papers: Dewetting of thin polymer films: Influence of inte…
We study numerically the effect of thermal fluctuations and of variable fluid-substrate interactions on the spontaneous dewetting of thin liquid films. To this aim, we use a recently developed lattice Boltzmann method for thin liquid film…
Freestanding thin polymer films with high molecular weights exhibit an anomalous decrease in the glass-transition temperature with film thickness. Specifically, in such materials, the measured glass-transition temperature evolves in an…
Confined geometries offer useful and experimentally amenable mechanical testing arrangements in which to study the molecular and micro-structural processes which govern plastic yield in stress environments dominated by hydrostatic pressure…
This paper reviews recent Monte Carlo simulation studies of the glassy behavior in thin polymer films. The simulations employ a version of the bond-fluctuation lattice model, in which the glass transition is driven by the competition…
We study the dewetting of liquid films capped by a thin elastomeric layer. When the tension in the elastomer is isotropic, circular holes grow at a rate which decreases with increasing tension. The morphology of holes and rim stability can…
We report molecular dynamics simulation results on the equilibrium properties of polymer thin films adsorbed onto flat and curved substrates. We first systematically determine the contact angle of polymer droplets on flat substrates as a…
Equations for dislocation evolution bridge the gap between dislocation properties and continuum descriptions of plastic behavior of crystalline materials. Computer simulations can help us verify these evolution equations and find their…
The coefficient of static friction between solids generally depends on the time they have remained in static contact before the measurement. Such frictional aging is at the origin of the difference between static and dynamic friction…
Blisters, delaminated regions that form in multilayered structures under compressive stresses, are observed across a wide range of length scales, from two-dimensional materials to protective coatings and laminated composites. Far from being…
A simple and predictive model is put forward explaining the experimentally observed substantial shift of the glass transition temperature, Tg, of sufficiently thin polymer films. It focuses on the limit of small molecular weight, where…
We report on the frictional behaviour of thin poly(dimethylacrylamide) (PDMA) hydrogels films grafted on glass substrates in sliding contact with a glass spherical probe. Friction experiments are carried out at various velocities and…
Glassy dynamics was investigated for thin films of atactic polystyrene by complex electric capacitance measurements using dielectric relaxation spectroscopy. During the isothermal aging process the real part of the electric capacitance…
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the influence of molecular-scale surface roughness on the slip behavior in thin liquid films. The slip length increases almost linearly with the shear rate for atomically smooth rigid…
We study the deformation and dewetting of liquid films under impinging gas jets using experimental, analytical and numerical techniques. We first derive a reduced-order model (a thin-film equation) based on the long-wave assumption and on…
Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the shear thinning behavior of immiscible symmetric polymer blends. The phase separated polymers are subjected to a simple shear flow imposed by moving a wall parallel to the…
We study the effect of film density on the uniaxial compression of thin elastic films at a liquid--fluid interface. Using a combination of experiments and theory, we show that dense films first wrinkle and then fold as the compression is…
Polycrystalline graphene has an inherent tendency to buckle, i.e. develop out-of-plane, three-dimensional structure. A force applied to stretch a piece of polycrystalline graphene influences the out-of-plane structure. Even if the graphene…
A theoretical model is developed for predicting dynamic polymer depletion effects under the influence of fluid flow. The results are established by combining the two-fluid model and the self-consistent field theory. We consider a uniform…
We describe benchmark experiments to evaluate the frictional properties of laser patterned low-density polyethylene as a function of sliding velocity, normal force and humidity. The pattern is a square lattice of square cavities with sub-mm…
We report on the delamination of thin ($\approx \mu$m) hydrogel films grafted to silicon substrates under the action of swelling stresses. Poly(dimetylacrylamide) (PDMA) films are synthesized by simultaneously cross-linking and grafting…