Related papers: Strain-stiffening gels based on latent crosslinkin…
Protein-stabilised emulsion gels can be studied in the theoretical framework of colloidal gels, because both protein assemblies and droplets may be considered as soft colloids. These particles differ in their nature, size and softness, and…
The liquid-liquid phase separation of a binary solvent can be arrested by colloidal particles trapped at the interface [K. Stratford et al., Science 309, 5744 (2005)]. We show experimentally that the colloidal network so formed can remain…
The weak properties in the thickness of the laminates in terms of rigidity, fatigue and impact resistance involve delamination sensitivity for thick structures. This issue has led to the development of three-dimensional (3D) preforms with…
Reconstituted filamentous actin networks with myosin motor proteins form active gels, in which motor proteins generate forces that drive the network far from equilibrium. This motor activity can also strongly affect the network elasticity;…
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…
A soft solid is said to be initially stressed if it is subjected to a state of internal stress in its unloaded reference configuration. Developing a sound mathematical framework to model initially stressed solids in nonlinear elasticity is…
Dynamically crosslinked semiflexible biopolymers such as the actin cytoskeleton govern the mechanical behavior of living cells. Semiflexible biopolymers nonlinearly stiffen in response to mechanical loads, whereas the crosslinker dynamics…
We performed Langevin dynamics simulations of amphiphilic polymers that contain strongly associating stickers connected by long soluble chain segments. We explored the aging of a thermoreversible gel which is crosslinked by aggregates…
Catch bonds are interactions whose lifetimes increase under mechanical load, a counterintuitive behaviour that underlies diverse biological processes. Translating this mechanism to synthetic materials offers the potential to create systems…
Collagen is the most abundant extracellular-matrix protein in mammals and the main structural and load-bearing element of connective tissues. Collagen networks show remarkable strain-stiffening properties which tune the mechanical functions…
Structuring wheat gluten proteins into gels with tunable mechanical properties would provide more versatility for the production of plant protein-rich food products. Gluten, a strongly elastic protein material insoluble in water, is hardly…
Using discrete element simulations based on molecular dynamics, we investigate the mechanical behavior of sheared, dry, frictional granular media in the "dense" and "critical" regimes. We find that this behavior is partitioned between…
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…
Dense suspensions of model hard-sphere-like colloids, with different particle sizes, are examined experimentally in the glass state, under shear and extensional rheology. Under steady shear flow we detect Discontinuous Shear Thickening…
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.…
A constitutive model is developed for the mechanical response of elastomers at finite strains. A polymer is treated as a network of linear chains linked by permanent (chemical crosslinks) and temporary (entanglements and van der Waals…
In the classic theory of solid adhesion, surface energy drives deformation to increase contact area while bulk elasticity opposes it. Recently, solid surface stress has been shown also to play an important role in opposing deformation of…
Strain plays a critical role in the properties of materials. In silicon and silicon-germanium, strain provides a mechanism for control of both carrier mobility and band offsets. In materials integra-tion, strain is typically tuned through…
Subjected to compressive stresses, soft polymers with stiffness gradients can display various buckling patterns. These compressive stresses can have different origins, like mechanical forces, temperature changes, or, for hydrogel materials,…
When a gel absorbs solvent from surrounding, stress field is created in the gel, and this causes complex dynamics of the swelling behavior. Here we study this effect for disk-shaped gel by rigorously solving the diffusio-mechanical coupling…