Related papers: Nonlinear effective medium theory of disordered sp…

Networks of stiff fibers govern the elasticity of biological structures such as the extracellular matrix of collagen. These networks are known to stiffen nonlinearly under shear or extensional strain. Recently, it has been shown that such…

For small tension the response of a solid to an applied stress is given by Hooke's law. Outside this linear regime the relation between stress and strain is no longer universal and at present there is no satisfactory insight on how to…

This work targets the influence of disorder on the relaxed structure and macroscopic mechanical properties of elastic networks. We construct network classes of different types of disorder (length, topology and stiffness), which are…

Disordered networks of fragile elastic elements have been proposed as a model of inner porous regions of large bones [Gunaratne et.al., cond-mat/0009221, http://xyz.lanl.gov]. It is shown that the ratio $\Gamma$ of responses of such a…

The elastic behavior of materials operating in the linear regime is constrained, by definition, to operations that are linear in the imposed deformation. Though the nonlinear regime holds promise for new functionality, the design in this…

Stretching an elastic material along one axis typically induces contraction along the transverse axes, a phenomenon known as the Poisson effect. From these strains, one can compute the specific volume, which generally either increases or,…

Due to their unique structural and mechanical properties, randomly-crosslinked polymer networks play an important role in many different fields, ranging from cellular biology to industrial processes. In order to elucidate how these…

Double network (DN) materials exhibit anomalous strength and toughness that far exceed the sum of their constituents. While widely exploited, the fundamental physical mechanisms underlying this synergy remain elusive. Here, we show that a…

Disordered solids often change their elastic response as they slowly age. Using experiments and simulations, we study how aging disordered planar networks under an applied stress affects their nonlinear elastic response. We are able to…

For thin networked materials, which are spatial discrete structures constructed by continuum components, a paradox on the effective thickness defined by the in-plane and out-of-plane stiffnesses is found, i.e. the effective thickness is not…

The mechanical properties of biological materials are spatially heterogeneous. Typical tissues are made up of a spanning fibrous extracellular matrix in which various inclusions, such as living cells, are embedded. While the influence of…

The elasticity of disordered and polydisperse polymer networks is a fundamental problem of soft matter physics that is still open. Here, we self-assemble polymer networks via simulations of a mixture of bivalent and tri- or tetravalent…

This paper presents a theoretical study on the influence of a discrete element in the nonlinear dynamics of a continuous mechanical system subject to randomness in the model parameters. This system is composed by an elastic bar, attached to…

The rheological properties of fibrin networks have been of long-standing interest. As such there is a wealth of studies of their shear and tensile responses, but their compressive behavior remains unexplored. Here, by characterization of…

Disordered networks of fragile elastic elements have been proposed as a model for inner porous regions of large bones [Gunaratne et.al., cond-mat/0009221]. In numerical studies, weakening of such networks is seen to be accompanied by…

Previous research on semiflexible polymers including cytoskeletal networks in cells has suggested the existence of distinct regimes of elastic response, in which the strain field is either uniform (affine) or non-uniform (non-affine) under…

We formulate an effective medium (mean field) theory of a material consisting of randomly distributed nodes connected by straight slender rods, hinged at the nodes. Defining novel wavelength-dependent effective elastic moduli, we calculate…

We study the effects of motor-generated stresses in disordered three dimensional fiber networks using a combination of a mean-field, effective medium theory, scaling analysis and a computational model. We find that motor activity controls…

The non-linear stress-strain relation for crosslinked polymer networks is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. Previously we demonstrated the importance of trapped entanglements in determining the elastic and relaxational…

Networks of filamentous proteins play a crucial role in cell mechanics. These cytoskeletal networks, together with various crosslinking and other associated proteins largely determine the (visco)elastic response of cells. In this letter we…