Related papers: Modeling semiflexible polymer networks
Time-discrete dynamical systems on a finite state space have been used with great success to model natural and engineered systems such as biological networks, social networks, and engineered control systems. They have the advantage of being…
The flow behavior of a semiflexible polymer in microchannels is studied using Multiparticle Collision Dynamics (MPC), a particle-based hydrodynamic simulation technique. Conformations, distributions, and radial cross-streamline migration…
Assemblies of purely repulsive and frictionless particles, such as emulsions or hard spheres, display very curious properties near their jamming transition, which occurs at the random close packing for mono-disperse spheres. Although such…
The interaction of amphiphilic polymers with small colloids, capable to reversibly stick onto the chains, is studied. Adhesive small colloids in solution are able to dynamically bind two polymer segments. This association leads to…
Disordered athermal biopolymer materials, such as collagen networks that constitute a major component in extracellular matrices and various connective tissues, are initially soft and compliant but stiffen dramatically under strain. Such…
The effect of a finite torque on semiflexible polymers in a confined environment is investigated. It is shown how a new lengthscale appears in the strongly confined limit. The influence of a torque on the extension of biopolymers in…
Semi-flexible manifolds such as fluid membranes or semi-flexible polymers undergo delocalization transitions if they are subject to attractive interactions. We study manifolds with short-ranged interactions by field-theoretic methods based…
We study a material modeled as a network of nodes connected by edges. Using a discrete approach, we build a nonlinear algebraic system that connects applied forces to internal forces and node positions. The model can describe elasticity,…
A common feature of biological networks is the geometric property of self-similarity. Molecular regulatory networks through to circulatory systems, nervous systems, social systems and ecological trophic networks, show self-similar…
We perform numerical simulations of isolated, partially active polymers, driven out-of-equilibrium by a fraction of their monomers. We show that, if the active beads are all gathered in a contiguous block, the position of the section along…
Physical aging in polymers is a fundamental yet poorly understood phenomenon, as diverse macromolecular systems exhibit remarkably similar slow dynamics. Through molecular dynamics simulations of physically crosslinked networks composed of…
Networks of semiflexible or stiff polymers such as most biopolymers are known to deform inhomogeneously when sheared. The effects of such non-affine deformation have been shown to be much stronger than for flexible polymers. To date, our…
The functioning of many biochemical networks is often robust -- remarkably stable under changes in external conditions and internal reaction parameters. Much recent work on robustness and evolvability has focused on the structure of neutral…
Soft composite solids are made of inclusions dispersed within soft matrices. They are ubiquitous in nature and form the basis of many biological tissues. In the field of materials science, synthetic soft composites are promising candidates…
The synthetic biopolymeric gels demand a great interest as bio-materials to mimic many biological scaffolding structures, which can contribute to a better understanding of the cytoskeleton-like structural building blocks and soft…
An assumption in micromechanical analysis of polymers is that the constitutive polymeric media is non-porous. Non-porosity of media, however, is merely a simplifying assumption. In this paper, we neglect this assumption and studied polymer…
The rigidity of elastic networks depends sensitively on their internal connectivity and the nature of the interactions between constituents. Particles interacting via central forces undergo a zero-temperature rigidity-percolation transition…
Entangled networks are ubiquitous in tissues, polymers, and fabrics. However, their mechanics remain insufficiently understood due to the complexity of the topological constraints at the network level. Here, we develop a mathematical…
The two approaches to analyzing the large strain behavior of rubbery networks are phenomenologically, using strain energy functions drawn from continuum mechanics, and molecular models, which apply statistical mechanics to compute the…
Since the invention of polymer networks in the 19th century (e.g., crosslinked natural rubber by Goodyear), it has been a dogma that stiffer networks are less stretchable, a trade-off inherent to the molecular nature of polymer network…