Related papers: Cosolute partitioning in polymer networks: Effects…
We present a statistical model of a dilute polymer solution in good solvent in the presence of low-molecular weight cosolvent. We investigate the conformational changes of the polymer induced by a change of the cosolvent concentration and…
Poroelastic materials, consisting of a permeable solid matrix infiltrated with fluid, are ubiquitous in natural and engineering contexts. In poroelastic polymer solids, the elastic matrix swells to equilibrium when immersed in a solvent…
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…
Systems under external confinement and constraints often show interesting properties. In this thesis, we study some systems under external confinement. We begin by finding out the probability distribution of end-to-end separation of a Worm…
The diffusion of molecules (penetrants) of variable size, shape, and chemistry through dense crosslinked polymer networks is a fundamental scientific problem that is broadly relevant in materials, polymer, physical and biological chemistry.…
Phase separation within polymer networks plays a central role in shaping the structure and mechanics of both synthetic materials and living cells, including the formation of biomolecular condensates within cytoskeletal networks. Previous…
The collapse and swelling behavior of a generic homopolymer is studied using implicit-solvent, explicit-cosolvent Langevin dynamics computer simulations for varying interaction strengths. The systematic investigation reveals that polymer…
Here, we provide an overview of theoretical approaches to semiflexible polymers and their networks. Such semiflexible polymers have large bending rigidities that can compete with the entropic tendency of a chain to crumple up into a random…
Fundamental understanding of the effect of microscopic parameters on the dynamics of probe particles in different complex environments has wide implications. Examples include diffusion of proteins in the biological hydrogels, porous media,…
We report molecular dynamics simulation results on the equilibrium properties of polymer thin films adsorbed onto flat and curved substrates. We first systematically determine the contact angle of polymer droplets on flat substrates as a…
Polymerization and formation of crosslinked polymer networks are important processes in manufacturing, materials fabrication, and in the case of hydrated polymer networks, synthesis of biomedical materials, drug delivery, and tissue…
The nonequilibrium dynamical behavior and structure formation of end-functionalized semiflexible polymer suspensions under flow are investigated by mesoscale hydrodynamic simulations. The hybrid simulation approach combines the…
We study the structure and dynamics of a transient network composed of droplets of microemulsion connected by telechelic polymers. The polymer induces a bridging attraction between droplets without changing their shape. A viscoelastic…
We simulate entangled linear polymers in free-standing thin film geometries where the confining dimension is on the same scale or smaller than the bulk chain dimensions. We compare both film-averaged and layer-resolved, spatially…
The transport of solvent molecules through soft, swollen networks is critical in both natural and engineered systems. While this poroelastic flow has traditionally been explored in networks where the mesh size is comparable to the solvent…
Soft living tissues like cartilage can be considered as biphasic materials comprised of a fibrous complex biopolymer network and a viscous background liquid. Here, we show by a combination of experiment and theoretical analysis that both…
Motivated by the organization of crosslinked cytoskeletal biopolymers, we present a semimicroscopic replica field theory for the formation of anisotropic random networks of semiflexible polymers. The networks are formed by introducing…
A polymer chain tethered to a surface may be compact or extended, adsorbed or desorbed, depending on interactions with the surface and the surrounding solvent. This leads to a rich phase diagram with a variety of transitions. To investigate…
The diffusion of small molecular penetrants through polymeric materials represents an important fundamental problem, relevant to the design of materials for applications such as coatings and membranes. Polymer networks hold promise in these…
The equilibrium partitioning of linear polymer chains into flexible polymer networks is governed by intricate entropic constraints arising from configurational degrees of freedom of both chains and network, yet a quantitative understanding…