Related papers: Disorder, pre-stress and non-affinity in polymer 8…
We introduce a mathematical model for the mechanical behaviour of the eukaryotic cell cytoskeleton. This discrete model involves a regular array of pre-stressed protein filaments that exhibit resistance to enthalpic stretching, joined at…
Precipitation of fine particles into the base material of a metal is a potent strengthening mechanism. This is numerically analyzed within a continuum framework based on a higher order strain gradient plasticity theory and by use of an…
Analytical and numerical calculations are presented for the mechanical response of fiber networks in a state of axisymmetric prestress, in the limit where geometric non-linearities such as fiber rotation are negligible. This allows us to…
Properties of disordered nematic elastomers and gels are theoretically investigated with emphasis on the roles of non-local elastic interactions and crosslinking conditions. Networks originally crosslinked in the isotropic phase lose their…
A reasonably accurate representation of a polymer chain is provided by beads connected with rods, or stiff, inextensible springs that mimic a single Kuhn step. Due to high computational cost, coarse-grained bead-spring models are used in…
The long-ranged elastic model, which is believed to describe the evolution of a self-affine rough crack-front, is analyzed to linear and non-linear orders. It is shown that the nonlinear terms, while important in changing the front…
Inspired by experiments on dynamic extensile gels of biofilaments and motors, we propose a model of a network of linear springs with a kinetics consisting of growth at a prescribed rate, death after a lifetime drawn from a distribution, and…
Using a coarse-grained bead-spring model for semi-flexible macromolecules forming a polymer brush, structure and dynamics of the polymers is investigated, varying chain stiffness and grafting density. The anchoring condition for the grafted…
Experiments have shown that elasticity of disordered filamentous networks with compliant crosslinks is very different from networks with rigid crosslinks. Here, we model and analyze filamentous networks as a collection of randomly oriented…
We use nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations to verify recent tube-model predictions that associative polymer networks exhibit broad stretch fluctuations during elongational flow. Simulations further show that these fluctuating…
The relationship between the topological architecture of polymer networks and their macroscopic rupture remains a fundamental challenge in polymer physics. Recent coarse-grained simulations have revealed that the dependence of stretch at…
Both animal and plant tissue exhibit a nonlinear rheological phenomenon known as compression stiffening, or an increase in moduli with increasing uniaxial compressive strain. Does such a phenomenon exist in single cells, which are the…
The multiscale behavior of the individual fibrin fibers and fibrin clots is modeled by coupling atomistic simulation data and microscopic experimental data. We propose a protofibril element made up of nonlinear spring network, constructed…
Simulations are used to examine the microscopic origins of strain hardening in polymer glasses. While traditional entropic network models can be fit to the total stress, their underlying assumptions are inconsistent with simulation results.…
We develop a continuum theory for equilibrium elasticity of a network of crosslinked semiflexible filaments, spanning the full range between flexible entropy-driven chains to stiff athermal rods. We choose the 3-chain constitutive model…
Polymer networks formed by cross linking flexible polymer chains are ubiquitous in many natural and synthetic soft-matter systems. Current micromechanics models generally do not account for excluded volume interactions except, for instance,…
Cross-linked polymer networks with orientational order constitute a wide class of soft materials and are relevant to biological systems (e.g., F-actin bundles). We analytically study the nonlinear force-extension relation of an array of…
Prestress in amorphous solids bears the memory of their formation, and plays a profound role in their mechanical properties, from stiffening or softening elastic moduli to shifting frequencies of vibrational modes, as well as directing…
Disordered network materials abound in both nature and synthetic situations while rigorous analysis of their nonlinear mechanical behaviors still is very challenging. The purpose of this paper is to connect the mathematical framework of…
This review describes the development and applications of multi-chain coarse-grained simulations for entangled polymer dynamics. The mean-field tube model has long served as the standard paradigm for describing the many-body entanglement…