Related papers: Mechanics of polymer brush based soft active mater…
Flow in soft materials encompasses a wide range of viscous, plastic and elastic phenomena which provide challenges to modelling at the microscopic level. To create a controlled flow, we perform falling ball viscometry tests on packings of…
In this work, we study the deformation behavior of thin films of various soft glassy materials that are simultaneously subjected to two creep flow fields, rotational shear flow by applying torque and elongational flow by applying normal…
We study the mechanics of pressurized graphene membranes using an experimental configuration that allows the determination of the elasticity of graphene and the adhesion energy between a substrate and a graphene (or other two-dimensional…
The Self-Consistent Field theory of brushes of neutral water-soluble polymers described by two-state models is formulated in terms of the effective Flory interaction parameter $\chi_{eff}(T,\phi)$ that depends on both temperature, T and the…
In some recent experiments on entangled polymers of stress growth in startup of fast shear flows an undershoot in the shear stress is observed following the overshoot, i.e., before approaching the steady state. Whereas tumbling of the…
We study surface effects in amorphous polymer systems by means of computer simulation. In the framework of molecular dynamics, we present two different methods to prepare such surfaces. {\em Free} surfaces are stabilized solely by…
The response of amorphous materials to an applied strain can be continuous, or instead display a macroscopic stress drop when a shear band nucleates. Such discontinuous response can be observed if the initial configuration is very stable.…
The mechanical response of a wet granular layer to imposed shear is studied experimentally at low applied normal stress. The granular material is immersed in water and the shear is applied by sliding a plate resting on the upper surface of…
It is shown using a method based on a modified version of the mean field theory of Miklavic Marcelja that it should be possible for osmotic pressure due to the counterions associated with the two polyelectrolyte polymer brush coated…
We propose a dynamical theory of low-temperature shear deformation in amorphous solids. Our analysis is based on molecular-dynamics simulations of a two-dimensional, two-component noncrystalline system. These numerical simulations reveal…
We measure the response of open-cell polyurethane foams filled with a dense suspension of fumed silica particles in polyethylene glycol at compression speeds spanning several orders of magnitude. The gradual compressive stress increase of…
A thermodynamically related model is developed for describing elastic rubber-like behavior of amorphous and crystallizing polymers and demonstrated on example of simple extension. Both the “entropic” and “energetic”…
When two solids are squeezed together they will in general not make atomic contact everywhere within the nominal (or apparent) contact area. This fact has huge practical implications and must be considered in many technological…
We have recently developed some simple continuum models of static granular media which display "fragile" behaviour: they predict that the medium is unable to support certain types of infinitesimal load (which we call "incompatible" loads)…
Theoretical analyses and experiments have been carried out to investigate fracture behavior of glassy polymers. Our birefringence measurements quantify the local stress buildup at cut tip during different stages of drawing. Based on…
In this paper, we study the electrostatics of pH-responsive polyelectrolyte-grafted spherical particles by using a strong stretching theory that takes into account the excluded volume interaction and the density of chargeable sites on the…
When a liquid drop spreads on an adaptive substrate the latter changes its properties what may result in an intricate coupled dynamics of drop and substrate. Here we present a generic mesoscale hydrodynamic model for such processes that is…
We investigate asymptotic properties of long polymers grafted to convex cylindrical and spherical surfaces, and, in particular, distribution of chain free ends. The parabolic potential profile, predicted for flat and concave brushes, fails…
Graphene foams have recently attracted a great deal of interest for their possible use in technological applications, such as electrochemical storage devices, wearable electronics, and chemical sensing. In this work, we present…
Chain-like macromolecules (polymers) show characteristic adsorption properties due to their flexibility and internal degrees of freedom, when attracted to surfaces and interfaces. In this review we discuss concepts and features that are…