Related papers: Normal stresses in semiflexible polymer hydrogels
Normal stresses in sheared suspensions of non-Brownian particles are obtained from numerical simulations in the viscous regime. The stresses are determined in homogeneous shear of non-buoyant particles and by analyzing shear-induced…
We derive the expression of the stress tensor for one and two-component lipid membranes with density and composition inhomogeneities. We first express the membrane stress tensor as a function of the free-energy density by means of the…
Biopolymer gels, such as those made out of fibrin or collagen, are widely used in tissue engineering applications and biomedical research. Moreover, fibrin naturally assembles into gels in vivo during wound healing and thrombus formation.…
We introduce an anisotropic mean-field approach for the dynamics of semiflexible polymers under intermediate tension, the force range where a chain is partially extended but not in the asymptotic regime of a nearly straight contour. The…
We numerically investigate viscoelastic phase separation in polymer solutions under shear using a time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau model. The gross variables in our model are the polymer volume fraction and a conformation tensor. The latter…
A network of semiflexible biopolymers, known as the cytoskeleton, and molecular motors play fundamental mechanical roles in cellular activities. The cytoskeletal response to forces generated by molecular motors is profoundly linked to…
Unlike most synthetic materials, biological materials often stiffen as they are deformed. This nonlinear elastic response, critical for the physiological function of some tissues, has been documented since at least the 19th century, but the…
Animal cells in tissues are supported by biopolymer matrices, which typically exhibit highly nonlinear mechanical properties. While the linear elasticity of the matrix can significantly impact cell mechanics and functionality, it remains…
When amorphous solids are subjected to simple or pure strain, they exhibit elastic increase in stress, punctuated by plastic events that become denser (in strain) upon increasing the system size. It is customary to assume in theoretical…
Both entangled and unentangled polymer melts exhibit stress overshoots when subject to shearing flow. The size of the overshoot depends on the applied shear rate and is related to relaxation mechanisms such as reptation, chain stretch and…
Biomaterials such as protein or polysaccharide gels are known to behave qualitatively as soft solids and to rupture under an external load. Combining optical and ultrasonic imaging to shear rheology we show that the failure scenario of a…
In this paper, we study the fully developed gravity-driven flow of granular materials between two inclined planes. We assume that the granular materials can be represented by a modified form of the second-grade fluid where the viscosity…
We use numerical simulations and an athermal quasi-static shear protocol to investigate the yielding of a model colloidal gel. Under increasing deformation, the elastic regime is followed by a significant stiffening before yielding takes…
We measure the local yield stress, at the scale of small atomic regions, in a deeply quenched two-dimensional glass model undergoing shear banding in response to athermal quasistatic (AQS) deformation. We find that the occurrence of…
We apply a recently developed model of cytoskeletal force generation to study a cell intrinsic contractility, as well as its response to external loading. The model is based on a non-equilibrium thermodynamic treatment of the…
In Part I of this contribution, a systematic coarse-grained description of the dynamics of a weakly-bending semiflexible polymer was developed. Here, we discuss analytical solutions of the established deterministic partial…
In this research study, a numerical tool, which is based on a version of Slender Body theory, has been used and also modified to simulate the mechanical behaviour of single- and double-cross-linked biopolymer networks (hydrogel) under…
The rheological properties of fibrin networks have been of long-standing interest. As such there is a wealth of studies of their shear and tensile responses, but their compressive behavior remains unexplored. Here, by characterization of…
In soft amorphous materials, shear cessation after large shear deformation leads to structures having residual shear stress. The origin of these states and the distribution of the local shear stresses within the material is not well…
From pasta to biological tissues to contact lenses, gel and gel-like materials inherently soften as they swell with water. In dry, low-relative-humidity environments, these materials stiffen as they de-swell with water. Here, we use…