Related papers: Normal stresses in semiflexible polymer hydrogels
A simple analytical model of intergranular normal stresses is proposed for a general elastic polycrystalline material with arbitrary shaped and randomly oriented grains under uniform loading. The model provides algebraic expressions for the…
The second invariant of the left Cauchy-Green deformation tensor $\mathbf{B}$ (or right $\mathbf{C}$) has been argued to play a fundamental role in nonlinear elasticity. Generalized neo-Hookean materials, which depend only on the first…
A sheet of glassy polymers placed in a solvent shows swelling behaviors quite different from that of soft polymers (rubbers and gels). (1) Non-Fickian diffusion (called case II diffusion): As solvent permeates into the sample, a sharp front…
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…
The production of mechanical stresses in living organisms largely relies on localized, force-generating active units embedded in filamentous matrices. Numerical simulations of discrete fiber networks with fixed boundaries have shown that…
We perform molecular dynamics simulations under uniaxial tension to investigate the micromechanisms underlying strain hardening in glassy polymers. By decomposing the stress into virial components associated with pair, bond, and angle…
In this work we discuss possible physical origins for non-trivial exponents in the athermal rheology of soft materials at low but finite driving rates. A key ingredient in our scenario is the presence of a self-consistent mechanical noise…
Solutions of semiflexible polymers confined by repulsive planar walls are studied by density functional theory and Molecular Dynamics simulations, to clarify the competition between the chain alignment favored by the wall and the depletion…
Internally generated active stresses drive soft materials into architectures inaccessible to thermal self-assembly. We use a microtubule-based active fluid to assemble and irreversibly restructure actin-fascin networks. Subsequently, we…
We consider a model dense colloidal dispersion at the glass transition, and investigate the connection between equilibrium stress fluctuations, seen in linear shear moduli, and the shear stresses under strong flow conditions far from…
In this work, we investigate the transient rheological behavior of two soft glassy materials: a clay dispersion and a silica gel, emphasizing their unconventional shear stress build-up behavior under conditions of constant imposed strain.…
A microfluidic approach to probing the first normal stress difference from single-point pressure measurements in transient shear flows is presented. Using an original experimental design, we examine the near-zero-mean pulsatile flow of…
We develop a double mean-field theory for charged macrogels immersed in electrolyte solutions in the spirit of the cell model approach. We first demonstrate that the equilibrium sampling of a single explicit coarse-grained charged polymer…
We image semi-flexible polymer networks under shear at the micrometer scale. By tracking embedded probe particles, we determine the local strain field, and directly measure its uniformity, or degree of affineness, on scales of 2-100 micron.…
Viscoelastic stress relaxation is a basic characteristic of soft matter systems such as colloids, gels, and biological networks. Although the Maxwell model of linear viscoelasticity provides a classical description of stress relaxation, the…
Using molecular dynamics, this study investigates the local elastic properties of transverse shear deformation of lipid membranes. The analysis demonstrates that transverse shear deformation induces anisotropy in the local stress profile of…
Thermal fluctuations, geometric exclusion, and external driving all govern the mechanical response of dense particulate suspensions. Here, we measure the stress-strain response of quasi-two-dimensional flow-stabilized microsphere heaps in a…
An analytic, asymptotic approximation of the nonlinear steady-state equations for viscoelastic creeping flow, modeled by the Oldroyd-B equations with polymer stress diffusion, is derived. Near the extensional stagnation point the flow…
We study the micromechanics of collagen-I gel with the goal of bridging the gap between theory and experiment in the study of biopolymer networks. Three-dimensional images of fluorescently labeled collagen are obtained by confocal…
In the technique of microrheology, macroscopic rheological parameters as well as information about local structure are deduced from the behavior of microscopic probe particles under thermal or active forcing. Microrheology requires…