Related papers: Deformation propagation in responsive polymer netw…
Microgels made of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) are the prototype of soft, thermoresponsive particles widely used to study fundamental problems in condensed matter physics. However, their internal structure is far from homogeneous, and…
To understand the role of collective motion in the often large changes in interfacial molecular mobility observed in polymer films, we investigate the extent of collective motion in the interfacial regions of a thin supported polymer film…
Self-healing of polymer films often takes place as the molecules diffuse across a damaged region, above their melting temperature. Using molecular dynamics simulations we probe the healing of polymer films and compare the results with those…
Molecular dynamics study of a thin (one to five layers) lubricant film between two substrates in moving contact are performed using Langevin equations with an external damping coefficient depending on distance and velocity of atoms relative…
We investigate the dynamics of a particle moving randomly along a disordered hetero-polymer subjected to rapid conformational changes which induce superdiffusive motion in chemical coordinates. We study the antagonistic interplay between…
We present a revised theoretical study of the affine assumption applied to semiflexible networks. Drawing on simple models of semiflexible worm-like chains we derive an expression for the probability distribution of crosslink separations…
We present an exact treatment of wave propagation in some inhomogeneous thin films with highly space-dependent dielectric constant. It is based on a space transformation which replaces the physical space by the optical path. In the new…
We examine theoretically the spreading of a viscous liquid drop over a thin film of uniform thickness, assuming the liquid's viscosity is regulated by the concentration of a solute that is carried passively by the spreading flow. The solute…
We investigate the role of architected thin films in the interfacial failure properties of bi-layer composites. Our results show that, while graded structures can be used to prescribe failure at the interface, they do not offer significant…
The dynamic properties of a model transient network have been studied by dynamic light scattering. The network is formed by microemulsion droplets linked by telechelic polymers (modified hydrophilic polymers with two grafted hydrophobic…
We numerically examine the nonlinear rubber elasticity of topologically constrained polymer networks. We propose a simple and effective model based on Graessley and Pearson's topological model (GP model) for describing the topological…
We study quasi-static deformation of dense granular packings. The packing is deformed by imposing external boundary conditions, which model engineering experiments such as shear and compression. We propose a two-dimensional network model of…
Soft elastic composite materials can serve as actuators when they transform changes in external fields into mechanical deformation. Here, we address the corresponding deformational behavior of magnetic gels and elastomers, consisting of…
The elastic coupling between plastic events is generally invoked to interpret plastic properties and failure of amorphous soft glassy materials. We report an experiment where the emergence of a self-organized plastic flow is observed well…
Biofilms are bacterial aggregates encased in a self-produced polymeric matrix which attach to moist surfaces and are extremely resistant to chemicals and antibiotics. Recent experiments show that their structure is defined by the interplay…
Against common sense, auxetic materials expand or contract perpendicularly when stretched or compressed, respectively, by uniaxial strain, being characterized by a negative Poisson's ratio $\nu$. The amount of deformation in response to the…
When transported in confined geometries rigid fibers show interesting transport dynamics induced by friction with the top and bottom walls. Fiber flexibility causes an additional coupling between fiber deformation and transport and is…
Plastic deformation of heterogeneous solid structures is often characterized by random intermittent local plastic events. On the mesoscale this feature can be represented by a spatially fluctuating local yield threshold. Here we study the…
We construct a homogeneous, nonlinear elastic constitutive law, that models aspects of the mechanical behavior of inhomogeneous fibrin networks. Fibers in such networks buckle when in compression. We model this as a loss of stiffness in…
In this paper we present a discrete model governing the deformation of a convex regular polygon subjected not to cross a given flat rigid surface, on which it initially lies in correspondence of one point only. First, we set up the model in…