Related papers: Cross-linking of polyesters based on fatty acids
We address the physics of nematic liquid crystalline elastomers randomly crosslinked in the isotropic state. To do this, we construct a phenomenological effective replica Hamiltonian in terms of two order-parameter fields: one for the…
Thermo-mechanical properties of polymer networks depend on functionality of the monomer precursors -- an association that is frequently exploited in materials science. We use molecular simulations to generate spatial networks from…
We present stacked organic lasing heterostructures made by different species of light-emitting electrospun fibers, each able to provide optical gain in a specific spectral region. A hierarchical architecture is obtained by conformable…
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…
Multiscale periodic metamaterials have been designed for numerous applications, such as impact absorption, acoustic cloaking, photonic band gaps, and mechanical logic gates. This prior work has focused on optimizing mesoscale structure for…
Polyelectrolyte-surfactant complexes (PESCs) have long been employed as oil-in-water (o/w) emulsions stabilizers, but never in the structure of colloidal complex coacervates providing a Pickering effect. The complexed state of PESCs could…
The selective solute partitioning within a polymeric network is of key importance to applications in which controlled release or uptake of solutes in a responsive hydrogel is required. In this work we investigate the impact of cross-links…
This thesis presents the development of entropy-elastic gelatin based networks in the form of films or scaffolds. The materials have good prospects for biomedical applications, especially in the context of bone regeneration. Entropy-elastic…
Four series of tensile loading-unloading tests are performed on isotactic polypropylene in the sub-yield domain of deformations at room temperature. In the first series, injection-molded specimens are used as produced, whereas in the other…
Molecular dynamics simulations have been employed to study the formation of a physical (thermoreversible) gel by amphiphilic A-B-A triblock copolymers in aqueous solution. In order to mimic the structure of hydrogel-forming polypeptides…
Elastocaloric cooling, which exploits the latent heat released and absorbed as stress-induced phase transformations are reversibly cycled in shape memory alloys, has recently emerged as a frontrunner in non-vapor-compression cooling…
Hydrogen is deemed as an attractive energy carrier alternative to fossil fuels, and it is required to store for many applications. Physisorption is one of the promising ways to store H$_2$ for its practical applications. Covalent Organic…
Three-dimensional DNA networks, composed of tri- or higher valent nanostars with sticky, single-stranded DNA overhangs, have been previously studied in the context of designing thermally responsive, viscoelastic hydrogels. In this work, we…
Understanding dynamic and complex interaction of biological membranes with extracellular matrices plays a crucial role in controlling a variety of cell behavior and functions, from cell adhesion and growth to signaling and differentiation.…
Two types of high-strength composite hydrogels possessing the structure of interpenetrating polymer networks were synthesized via free-radical polymerization of acrylamide carried out straight within the matrix of plant or bacterial…
Using the theory of elasticity of polymer gels we show that large-scale cross-link density patterns written into the structure of the network in the melt state, can be revealed upon swelling by monitoring the monomer density patterns. We…
Electrospun nanofibrous membranes of natural polymers, such as gelatin, are fundamental in the design of regenerative devices. Crosslinking of electrospun fibres from gelatin is required to prevent dissolution in water, to retain the…
For nearly a century, introduction of nanoparticles to elastomers has yielded extraordinarily tough nanocomposites that are critical to technologies from actuators to tires. The mechanisms by which this reinforcement occurs have…
A panoptic view of architectured planar lattices based on star-polygon tilings was developed. Four star-polygon-based lattice sub-families, formed of systematically arranged triangles, squares, or hexagons, were investigated numerically and…
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…