Related papers: Normal stresses in semiflexible polymer hydrogels
In the fiber melt spinning of semi-crystalline polymers, the degree of crystallization can be non-homogeneous over the cross-section of the fiber, affecting the properties of the end product. For simulation-based process design, the…
The conformations of semiflexible (bio)polymers are studied in flow through geometrically structured microchannels. Using mesoscale hydrodynamics simulations, we show that the polymer undergoes a rod-to-helix transition as it moves from the…
Biopolymer networks are common in biological systems from the cytoskeleton of individual cells to collagen in the extracellular matrix. The mechanics of these systems under applied strain can be explained in some cases by a phase transition…
Disordered biopolymer gels have striking mechanical properties including strong nonlinearities. In the case of athermal gels (such as collagen-I) the nonlinearity has long been associated with a crossover from a bending dominated to a…
We propose a theory based on non-equilibrium thermodynamics to describe the mechanical behavior of an active polymer gel created by the inclusion of molecular motors in its solvent. When activated, these motors attach to the chains of the…
Hydrogels are increasingly recognized as a versatile platform for applications spanning from tissue engineering to soft robotics or flexible electronics. Recent efforts have focused on enhancing and tailoring their mechanical performance to…
We derive the constitutive equations of an active polar gel from a model for the dynamics of elastic molecules that link polar elements. Molecular binding kinetics induces the fluidization of the material, giving rise to Maxwell…
The role of active stress on the conformational dynamics of a polymer has drawn significant interest due to its potential applications in understanding the energy landscape of protein structures, buckling of biopolymers, genomic spatial…
A long standing puzzle in the rheology of living cells is the origin of the experimentally observed long time stress relaxation. The mechanics of the cell is largely dictated by the cytoskeleton, which is a biopolymer network consisting of…
Polymer microgels exhibit intriguing macroscopic flow properties arising from their unique microscopic structure. Microgel colloids usually comprise a crosslinked polymer network with a radially decaying density profile, resulting in a…
The mechanical non-linear response of dense Brownian suspensions of polymer gel particles is studied experimentally and by means of numerical simulations. It is shown that the response to the application of a constant shear rate depends on…
We study computationally the creep and yielding of athermal gels and fibre network materials under a constant imposed shear stress, within a minimal model of interconnected filaments with central forces in $d=2$ spatial dimensions. Each…
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…
The first normal stress difference (${\mathcal N}_1$) and the microstructure in a dense sheared granular fluid of smooth inelastic hard-disks are probed using event-driven simulations. While the anisotropy in the second moment of…
We explore the influence of particle softness and internal structure on both the bulk and interfacial rheological properties of colloidal suspensions. We probe bulk stresses by conventional rheology, by measuring the flow curves, shear…
The rheological properties of tangentially propelled flexible polymers under linear shear flow are studied by computer simulations and are compared with analytical calculations. We find a significant impact of the coupled nonequilibrium…
Liquid foams are archetypal athermal amorphous solids whose elasticity arises from the jamming of densely packed bubbles. We investigate the stress relaxation of non-ageing liquid foams following flow cessation, using fast X-ray…
The nonequilibrium structural and dynamical properties of semiflexible active polar polymers subject to linear flow are studied by numerical simulations. Filaments are confined in two dimensions and immersed in a fluid described by the…
Colloidal gel networks are disordered elastic solids that can form even in extremely dilute particle suspensions. With interaction strengths comparable to the thermal energy, their stress-bearing network can locally restructure via breaking…
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…