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The elasticity of rubbery polymer networks has been considered to be entropy-driven. On the other hand, studies on single polymer chain mechanics have revealed that the elasticity of ultimately stretched polymer chains is dominated by the…
We use a theoretical model to explore how fluid dynamics, in particular, the pressure gradient and wall shear stress in a channel, affect the deposition of particles flowing in a microfluidic network. Experiments on transport of colloidal…
Many organisms have an elastic skeleton that consists of a closed shell of epithelial cells that is filled with fluid, and can actively regulate both elastic forces in the shell and hydrostatic pressure inside it. In this work we introduce…
We use computer simulations to study the relaxation dynamics of a model for oil-in-water microemulsion droplets linked with telechelic polymers. This system exhibits both gel and glass phases and we show that the competition between these…
Statistical mechanics is an important tool for understanding polymer electroelasticity because the elasticity of polymers is primarily due to entropy. However, a common approach for the statistical mechanics of polymer chains, the Gaussian…
A fundamental theory is presented for the mechanical response of polymer networks undergoing large deformation which seamlessly integrates statistical mechanical principles with macroscopic thermodynamic constitutive theory. Our formulation…
Glassy polymers show strain hardening: at constant extensional load, their flow first accelerates, then arrests. Recent experiments under such loading have found this to be accompanied by a striking dip in the segmental relaxation time.…
Indentation is a common experimental technique to study the mechanics of polymeric materials. The main advantage of using indentation is because this provides a direct correlation between the microstructure and the small-scale mechanical…
Synthetic polymers have a distribution of chain lengths which can be characterized by dispersity, D. Macroscopic properties of polymers are influenced by chain mobility in the melt and manipulating D can significantly impact these…
We investigate wrinkling of two-dimensional random and triangular semiflexible polymer networks under shear. Both types of semiflexible networks exhibit wrinkling above a small critical shear angle, which scales with an exponent of the…
Molecular dynamics simulations were performed for a polymer melt. In quiescent states, the inter-chain interaction energy supported by each particle takes relatively large values persistently for long times if the particle is close to an…
The mechanics of single-chain stretching and rupture are central to understanding the resilience of biological polymers and designing strong and tough soft materials such as double-network gels and multi-network elastomers. In this work, we…
Dielectric elastomers (DEs) that couple deformation and electrostatics have the potential for use in soft sensors and actuators with applications ranging from robotic, biomedical, energy, aerospace and automotive technologies. However,…
We employ a mathematical model to analyze stress chains in thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) with a microphase-separated spherical structure composed of triblock copolymers. The model represents stress chains during uniaxial and biaxial…
Plasmons and polar phonons are elementary electrodynamic excitations of matter. In 2d and at long wavelengths, they couple to light and act as the system polaritons. They also dictate the scattering of charged carriers. Van der Waals…
Large-scale molecular simulations are performed to investigate tensile failure of polymer interfaces as a function of welding time $t$. Changes in the tensile stress, mode of failure and interfacial fracture energy $G_I$ are correlated to…
A plethora of natural and industrial shear-driven granular flows exhibit particle-size segregation. Its occurrence is commonly attributed to two primary mechanisms: kinetic sieving and squeeze expulsion. While kinetic sieving is relatively…
We perform large scale three-dimensional molecular dynamics simulations of unlinked and unknotted ring polymers diffusing through a background gel, here a three-dimensional cubic lattice. Taking advantage of this architecture, we propose a…
We generalize and apply a microscopic force-level statistical mechanical theory of the activated dynamics of dilute spherical penetrants in glass-forming liquids to study the influence of permanent crosslinking in polymer networks on the…
Associative polymer networks have shown a major promise in fabrication of self-healing and responsive materials. The can also serve as simple models to study more complex biological systems where transient interactions play an important…