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We investigate wrinkling of two-dimensional random and triangular semiflexible polymer networks under shear. Both types of semiflexible networks exhibit wrinkling above a small critical shear angle, which scales with an exponent of the…
Phase separation within polymer networks plays a central role in shaping the structure and mechanics of both synthetic materials and living cells, including the formation of biomolecular condensates within cytoskeletal networks. Previous…
The forces that mixtures of motorized and passive crosslinking proteins collectively generate between cytoskeletal filaments within our cells are the key drivers of active cellular mechanics. Despite their importance, a unified theory to…
We study the partitioning of cosolute particles in a thin film of a semi-flexible polymer network by a combination of coarse-grained (implicit-solvent) stochastic dynamics simulations and mean-field theory. We focus on a wide range of…
A statistical model of resistor network is proposed to describe a polymer structure and to simulate the real and imaginary components of its ac resistivity. It takes into account the polydispersiveness of the material as well as intrachain…
Since the invention of polymer networks in the 19th century (e.g., crosslinked natural rubber by Goodyear), it has been a dogma that stiffer networks are less stretchable, a trade-off inherent to the molecular nature of polymer network…
We present a model for disordered 3D fiber networks to study their linear and nonlinear elasticity over a wide range of network densities and fiber lengths. In contrast to previous 2D models, these 3D networks with binary cross-links are…
Ring, or cyclic, polymers have unique properties compared to linear polymers, due to their topologically closed structure that has no beginning or end. Experimental measurements on molecular ring polymers are challenging due to their…
We introduce a mathematical model for the mechanical behaviour of the eukaryotic cell cytoskeleton. This discrete model involves a regular array of pre-stressed protein filaments that exhibit resistance to enthalpic stretching, joined at…
DNA bending on length scales shorter than a persistence length plays an integral role in the translation of genetic information from DNA to cellular function. Quantitative experimental studies of these biological systems have led to a…
Semiflexible polymers form central structures in biological material. Modeling approaches usually neglect influences of polymer-specific molecular features aiming to describe semiflexible polymers universally. Here, we investigate the…
The rigidity of elastic networks depends sensitively on their internal connectivity and the nature of the interactions between constituents. Particles interacting via central forces undergo a zero-temperature rigidity-percolation transition…
The transport of deformable particles through porous media underlies a wealth of applications ranging from filtration to oil recovery to the transport and spreading of biological agents. Using direct numerical simulations, we analyze the…
There is a growing interest in producing materials with mechanical behaviours similar to those of internal organs. An artificial tissue may be expected to experience several types of compressive and shear deformation in the course of normal…
Current understanding of how contractility emerges in disordered actomyosin networks of non-muscle cells is still largely based on the intuition derived from earlier works on muscle contractility. This view, however, largely overlooks the…
We study the interplay between entropy and topological constraints for a polymer chain in which sliding rings (slip-links) enforce pair contacts between monomers. These slip-links divide a closed ring polymer into a number of sub-loops…
We study a model of an active gel of cross-linked semiflexible filaments with additional active linkers such as myosin II clusters. We show that the coupling of the elasticity of the semiflexible filaments to the mechanical properties of…
In this paper, we develop and analyze a minimal model for a 2D network of cross-linked actin filaments and myosin motors, representing the cortical cytoskeleton of eukaryotic cells. We implement coarse-grained representations of force…
The influence of structural constraints on the relaxation dynamics of three polyurea networks with varying degree of crosslinking, has been studied by means of a thorough analysis of broadband dielectric spectroscopy measurements. Two…
We use molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the microscopic and macroscopic response of model polymer networks to uniaxial elongations. By studying networks with strands lengths ranging from $N_s=20$ to 200 we cover the full…