Related papers: Mechanical characterization of stress softening in…
Double network hydrogels show remarkable mechanical performance, combining high strength and fracture toughness with sufficient stiffness to bear load, despite containing only a low density of cross-linked polymer molecules in water. We…
Double polymer networks exhibit a striking enhancement of toughness compared to single networks, yet the microscopic mechanisms governing stress redistribution, damage evolution, and fracture remain incompletely understood. Using…
Multiple polymer networks, such as double-network elastomers comprising a sacrificial and a matrix network, exhibit exceptional mechanical resilience, commonly attributed to the formation of an extended damage zone before a crack can grow.…
Usually, the strain-induced softening behaviour observed in the differential modulus $K(T,\gamma)$ of hydrogels has been attributed to the breakage of internal structures of the network, such as the cross-links that bind together the…
We propose a theoretical framework for dealing with a transient polymer network undergoing small deformations, based on the rate of breaking and re-forming of network crosslinks and the evolving elastic reference state. In this framework,…
Stress relaxation following deformation of an entangled polymeric liquid is thought to be affected by transient reforming of chain entanglements. In this work, we use single molecule techniques to study the relaxation of individual polymers…
The non-linear stress-strain relation for crosslinked polymer networks is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. Previously we demonstrated the importance of trapped entanglements in determining the elastic and relaxational…
Hybrid double-network hydrogels are a class of material that comprise transiently and permanently crosslinked polymer networks and exhibit an enhanced toughness that is believed to be governed by the yielding of the transient polymer…
Hydrogels of semiflexible biopolymers such as collagen have been shown to contract axially under shear strain, in contrast to the axial dilation observed for most elastic materials. Recent work has shown that this behavior can be understood…
The toughness of a polymer material can increase significantly if two networks are combined into one material. This toughening effect is a consequence of a transition from a brittle to a ductile failure response. Although this transition…
Hydrogels have had a profound impact in the fields of tissue engineering, drug delivery, and materials science as a whole. Due to the network architecture of these materials, imbibement with water often results in uniform swelling and…
We study the mechanical and conformational properties of networks of helical polymers with a combination of Monte Carlo simulations based on the Wang-Landau algorithm and the Three-chain Model. We find that the stress-strain behavior of…
Hydrogels are biphasic, swollen polymer networks where elastic deformation is coupled to nanoscale fluid flow. As a consequence, hydrogels can withstand large strains and exhibit nonlinear, hyperelastic properties. For low-modulus hydrogel…
Simulations are used to examine the microscopic origins of strain hardening in polymer glasses. While traditional entropic network models can be fit to the total stress, their underlying assumptions are inconsistent with simulation results.…
An analytical model of mechanical stress in a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) of a hydrogen/air fuel cell with porous Water Transfer Plates (WTP) is developed in this work. The model considers a mechanical stress in the membrane is a…
Biopolymer gels such as fibrin and collagen networks are known to develop tensile axial stress when subject to torsion. This negative normal stress is opposite to the classical Poynting effect observed for most elastic solids including…
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…
Elastomers are viscoelastic materials and their properties significantly depend on the loading rate. The actual stress experienced by these materials is the sum of equilibrium and dissipative (inelastic) terms. At very low loading rates we…
We use a minimal model for a dense suspension undergoing thickening and thinning to investigate microstructural changes in 2d simulations. Our simulations show that in steady flow the contact network contains distinct building blocks which…
The classical rheological theories of entangled polymeric liquids are built upon two pillars: Gaussian statistics of entanglement strands and the assumption that the stress arises exclusively from the change of intramolecular configuration…