Related papers: Dynamics of vitrimers: defects as a highway to str…
Vitrimers are a special class of polymers that undergo dynamic cross-linking under thermal stimuli. Their ability to exchange covalent bonds can be harnessed to mitigate damage in a composite or to achieve recyclable aerospace composites.…
Since their discovery in 2011, vitrimers - covalent associative network polymers - have challenged the traditional understanding of soft matter relaxation dynamics: unlike in typical glass-forming liquids, vitrimers' viscous relaxation can…
Vitrimers are polymer networks that, thanks to covalent bond exchange, combine desirable properties of thermoplastic and thermosets, such as flowability and insolubility. For this reason, vitrimers are considered to be good candidates for a…
Polymer matrix fiber composites often suffer from residual stresses due to differences in coefficients of thermal expansion between the fibers and resins, as well as contractile strain of the resins during curing. To address residual stress…
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…
Vitrimers are polymer networks that can undergo bond exchange reactions. They dynamically rearrange their structures while maintaining their overall integrity, thus resulting in unique properties such as self-healing, reprocessability,…
Polymer entanglements lead to complicated topological constraints and interactions between neighbouring chains in a dense solution or melt. Entanglements can be treated in a mean field approach, within the famous reptation model, since they…
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…
Vitrimers offer a promising sustainable alternative to conventional epoxies due to their recyclability. Vitrimers are covalent adaptive networks where some bonds can break and reform above the vitrimer transition temperature. While this can…
Vitrimers, an important subset of dynamically crosslinked polymer networks, have many technological applications for their excellent properties, and the ability to be re-processed through plastic flow above the so-called vitrification…
Vitrimers are a relatively new class of polymeric materials containing associative covalent dynamic bonds that make them recyclable by design. However, the fundamental mechanisms controlling their viscoelastic properties remain poorly…
Adding dynamic bonds in polymer networks enables reprocessing and recycling; however the full impact of reversible bonds on dynamic network mechanics remains unclear. We build model dynamic networks and observe substantial deviations from…
Understanding how a stressor applied on a biological system shapes its evolution is key to achieving targeted evolutionary control. Here we present a toy model of two interacting lattice proteins to quantify the response to the selective…
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…
Elastomers that can sustain large reversible strain are essential components for stretchable electronics. The stretchability and mechanical robustness of unfilled elastomers can be enhanced by introducing easier-to-break cross-links, e.g.…
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.…
Understanding how topological constraints affect the dynamics of polymers in solution is at the basis of any polymer theory and it is particularly needed for melts of rings. These polymers fold as crumpled and space-filling objects and,…
Entangled networks are ubiquitous in tissues, polymers, and fabrics. However, their mechanics remain insufficiently understood due to the complexity of the topological constraints at the network level. Here, we develop a mathematical…
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…
Polymers with active segments constitute prospective future materials and are used as a model for some biological systems such as chromatin. The directions of the active forces are typically introduced with temporal or spatial correlations…