Related papers: Rethinking the Transient Network Concept in Entang…
The size of rings (also called cyclic polymers) in bidisperse blends of chemically identical rings is analyzed by computer simulations. Data of entangled ring blends and blends of interpenetrating rings are compared and it is shown that the…
We study theoretically a model system of a transient network of microemulsion droplets connected by telechelic polymers and explain recent experimental findings. Despite the absence of any specific interactions between either the droplets…
Packings of macroscopic granular chains capture some of the essential aspects of molecular polymer systems and have been suggested as a paradigm to understand the physics on a molecular scale. However, here we demonstrate that the…
We investigate with numerical simulations the influence of topology and stiffness on macroscopic rheological properties of polymer melts consisting of unknotted, knotted or concatenated rings. While melts of flexible, knotted oligomer rings…
We present an analytical theory for heteropolymer deformation, as exemplified experimentally by stretching of single protein molecules. Using a mean-field replica theory, we determine phase diagrams for stress-induced unfolding of typical…
Viscoelastic and thermodynamic properties of transient gels formed by telechelic polymers are studied on the basis of the transient network theory that takes account of the correlation among polymer chains via network junctions. The global…
Using molecular dynamics simulations, we provide chain-level insights into the dissimilarities in rearrangements of polymers under uniaxial tensile and compressive deformation in glassy and semicrystalline samples of varying chain lengths.…
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…
Following the Flory ideality hypothesis intrachain and interchain excluded volume interactions are supposed to compensate each other in dense polymer systems. Multi-chain effects should thus be neglected and polymer conformations may be…
In this paper we study a system of entangled chains that bear reversible cross-links in a melt state. The cross-links are tethered uniformly on the backbone of each chain. A slip-link type model for the system is presented and solved for…
Diffusion of long ring polymers in a melt is much slower than the reorganization of their internal structures. While direct evidences for entanglements have not been observed in the long ring polymers unlike linear polymer melts, threading…
Viscosity overshoot of entangled polymer melts has been observed under shear flow and uniaxial elongational flow, but has never been observed under biaxial elongational flow. We confirmed the presence of viscosity overshoot under biaxial…
Statistical mechanics is an important tool for understanding polymer electroelasticity because the elasticity of polymers is primarily due to entropy. However, a common approach for the statistical mechanics of polymer chains, the Gaussian…
We visualize entanglements in polymer melts using molecular dynamics simulation. A bead at an entanglement interacts persistently for long times with the non-bonded beads (those excluding the adjacent ones in the same chain). The…
The two approaches to analyzing the large strain behavior of rubbery networks are phenomenologically, using strain energy functions drawn from continuum mechanics, and molecular models, which apply statistical mechanics to compute the…
We develop a segment-scale, force-based theory for the breakdown of the unentangled Rouse model and subsequent emergence of isotropic mesoscopic localization and entropic elasticity in chain polymer liquids in the absence of…
A few experiments have reported that the time development of shear stress under fast start-up shear deformations exhibits double peaks before reaching the steady state for bimodal blends of entangled linear polymers in specific conditions.…
Many glass-forming fluids exhibit a remarkable thermodynamic scaling in which dynamic properties, such as the viscosity, the relaxation time, and the diffusion constant, can be described under different thermodynamic conditions in terms of…
Present theoretical predictions for the entanglement entropy through topological defects are violated by numerical simulations. In order to resolve this, we introduce a paradigm shift in the preparation of reduced density matrices in the…
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…