Related papers: Swelling thermodynamics and phase transitions of p…
When a swollen, thermoresponsive polymer gel is heated in a solvent bath, it expels solvent and deswells. When this heating is slow, deswelling proceeds homogeneously, as observed in a toroid-shaped gel that changes volume whilst…
We present a non-linear elastic model of a coherent transition with discontinuous volume change in an isotropic solid. The model reproduces the anomalous thermodynamics typical of coherent equilibrium including intrinsic hysteresis (for a…
Swelling is a volumetric-growth process in which a porous material expands by spontaneous imbibition of additional pore fluid. Swelling is distinct from other growth processes in that it is inherently poromechanical: Local expansion of the…
We study the effects of charge-regulated acid/base equilibrium on the swelling of polyelectrolyte gels, by considering a combination of the Poisson-Boltzmann theory and a two-site charge-regulation model based on the Langmuir adsorption…
Stimulus-induced volumetric phase transition in gels may be potentially exploited for various bio-engineering and mechanical engineering applications. Since the discovery of the phenomenon in the 1970s, extensive experimental research has…
Soft membranes are commonly employed in shape-morphing applications, where the material is programmed to achieve a target shape upon activation by an external trigger, and as coating layers that alter the surface characteristics of bulk…
We investigate a reversible polymerization process in which individual polymers aggregate and fragment at a rate proportional to their molecular weight. We find a nonequilibrium phase transition despite the fact that the dynamics are…
In this paper we present a new thermodynamically consistent phase transition model describing the evolution of a liquid substance, e.g., water, in a rigid container $\Omega$ when we freeze the container. Since the density $\varrho_{2}$ of…
We propose and analyze a mathematical model of the mechanics of gels, consisting of the laws of balance of mass and linear momentum. We consider a gel to be an immiscible and incompressible mixture of a nonlinearly elastic polymer and a…
We study pressurised self-avoiding ring polymers in two dimensions using Monte Carlo simulations, scaling arguments and Flory-type theories, through models which generalise the model of Leibler, Singh and Fisher [Phys. Rev. Lett. Vol. 59,…
In this paper, we discuss the equilibrium phases and collapse transitions of a lyotropic nematic gel immersed in an isotropic solvent. A nematic gel consists of a cross-linked polymer network with rod-like molecules embedded in it. Upon…
We investigate the swelling and shrinking of L_beta lamellar gel phases composed of surfactant and fatty alcohol after contact with aqueous poly(ethylene-glycol) solutions. The height change $\Delta h(t)$ is diffusion-like with a swelling…
The yielding transition that occurs in amorphous solids under athermal quasistatic deformation has been the subject of many theoretical and computational studies. Here, we extend this analysis to include thermal effects at finite shear…
The properties of semidilute polymer solutions are investigated at equilibrium and under shear flow by mesoscale simulations, which combine molecular dynamics simulations and the multiparticle collision dynamics approach. In semidilute…
We study the dynamics of the phase behavior of a polymer blend in the presence of shear flow. By adopting a two fluid picture and using a generalization of the concept of material derivative, we construct kinetic equations that describe the…
The addition of enough non-adsorbing polymer to an otherwise stable colloidal suspension gives rise to a variety of phase behavior and kinetic arrest due to the depletion attraction induced between the colloids by the polymers. We report a…
We study the thermodynamics of binary mixtures with the volume fraction of the minority component less than the amount required to form a flat interface and show that the surface tension dominated equilibrium phase of the mixture forms a…
We present Molecular Dynamics simulations of the thermal glass transition in a dense model polymer liquid. We performed a comparative study of both constant volume and constant pressure cooling of the polymer melt. Great emphasis was laid…
We present a non-isothermal mesoscopic model for investigation of the phase transition dynamics of thermoresponsive polymers. Since this model conserves energy in the simulations, it is able to correctly capture not only the transient…
We present an exactly solvable non-linear elastic model of a volume collapse transition in an isotropic solid. Integrity of the lattice through the transition leads to an infinite-range density-density interaction, which drives classical…