Related papers: Crosslinker mobility weakens transient polymer net…
Reversible crosslinkers can enable several desirable mechanical properties, such as improved toughness and self-healing, when incorporated in polymer networks for bioengineering and structural applications. In this work, we performed…
The structure of polymer networks, defined by chain lengths and connectivity patterns, fundamentally influences their bulk properties. While existing polymer network models connect chain properties to emergent network behavior, they are…
Disordered networks of semiflexible filaments are common support structures in biology. Familiar examples include fibrous matrices in blood clots, bacterial biofilms, and essential components of cells and tissues of plants, animals, and…
Here, we provide an overview of theoretical approaches to semiflexible polymers and their networks. Such semiflexible polymers have large bending rigidities that can compete with the entropic tendency of a chain to crumple up into a random…
The cytoskeleton is an inhomogeneous network of semi-flexible filaments, which are involved in a wide variety of active biological processes. Although the cytoskeletal filaments can be very stiff and embedded in a dense and cross-linked…
Cross-linked polymer networks with orientational order constitute a wide class of soft materials and are relevant to biological systems (e.g., F-actin bundles). We analytically study the nonlinear force-extension relation of an array 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.…
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…
Highly stretchable and self-healable supramolecular elastomers are promising materials for future soft electronics, biomimetic systems, and smart textiles, due to their dynamic cross-linking bonds. The dynamic or reversible nature of the…
Cells make use of semi-flexible biopolymers such as actin or intermediate filaments to control their local viscoelastic response by dynamically adjusting the concentration and type of cross-linker molecules. The microstructure of the…
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…
Due to their unique structural and mechanical properties, randomly-crosslinked polymer networks play an important role in many different fields, ranging from cellular biology to industrial processes. In order to elucidate how these…
The mechanical properties of cells are dominated by the cytoskeleton, an interconnected network of long elastic filaments. The connections between the filaments are provided by crosslinking proteins, which constitute, next to the filaments,…
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.…
Biological molecules can form hydrogen bonds between nearby residues, leading to helical secondary structures. The associated reduction of configurational entropy leads to a temperature dependence of this effect: the "helix-coil…
Polymer melts with chains undergoing reversible crosslinking have distinctively favorable dynamic properties, e.g., self healing and reprocessability. In these situations there are two relevant elementary time scales: the segmental and the…
A constitutive model is developed for the mechanical response of elastomers at finite strains. A polymer is treated as a network of linear chains linked by permanent (chemical crosslinks) and temporary (entanglements and van der Waals…
The stretchability of polymeric materials is critical to many applications such as stretchable electronics and soft robotics, yet the stretchability of conventional cross-linked linear polymers is limited by the entanglements between…
Experiments have long shown that a polymer network of covalent bonds commonly ruptures at a stress that is orders of magnitude lower than the strength of the covalent bonds. Here we investigate this large reduction in strength by…
We present a theory for the elasticity of cross-linked stiff polymer networks. Stiff polymers, unlike their flexible counterparts, are highly anisotropic elastic objects. Similar to mechanical beams stiff polymers easily deform in bending,…