Related papers: Olympic Gels: Concatenation and Swelling
Single partially confined collapsed polymers are studied in two dimensions. They are described by self-avoiding random walks with nearest-neighbour attractions below the $\Theta$-point, on the surface of an infinitely long cylinder. For the…
Polymer gels are comprised of a three-dimensional, cross-linked network that can typically withstand the mechanical deformation associated with both swelling and de-swelling. Thus, gels can be designed with smart behaviors that require both…
Interpenetrated Polymer Network (IPN) microgels of PNIPAM and PAAc have been investigated and the experimental data have been compared with theoretical models from the Flory-Rehner theory. We confirm that the swelling behavior of PNIPAM…
The dynamics of a physical gel, namely the Low Molecular Mass Organic Gelator {\textit Methyl-4,6-O-benzylidene-$\alpha$ -D-mannopyranoside ($\alpha$-manno)} in water and toluene are probed by neutron scattering. Using high gelator…
We exploit the controlled drying of millimeter-sized gel beads to investigate isotropic compression of colloidal fractal gels. Using a custom dynamic light scattering setup, we demonstrate that stresses imposed by drying on the bead surface…
The behavior of microgels near surfaces and their adsorption is studied by simple scaling theory. Two different types of microgels can be studied, i.e., fractal type microgels and randomly crosslinked polymer chains. In the first case the…
We investigate experimentally the collective behavior of a wet granular monolayer under vertical vibrations. The spherical particles are partially wet such that there are short-ranged attractive interactions between adjacent particles. As…
Colloidal gels are formed through the aggregation of attractive particles, whose size ranges from 10~nm to a few micrometers, suspended in a liquid. Such gels are ubiquitous in everyday life applications, from food products to paints or…
We recast the problem of hydrogel swelling under physical constraints as an energy optimization problem. We apply this approach to compute equilibrium shapes of hydrogel spheres confined within a jammed matrix of rigid beads, and interpret…
Microgels made of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) are the prototype of soft, thermoresponsive particles widely used to study fundamental problems in condensed matter physics. However, their internal structure is far from homogeneous, and…
Recent developments of microscopic mechanical experiments allow the manipulation of individual polymer molecules in two main ways: \textit{uniform} stretching by external forces and \textit{non-uniform} stretching by external fields. Many…
The flow behaviors of polymer melt composed of short chains with ten beads between parallel plates are simulated by using a hybrid method of molecular dynamics and computational fluid dynamics. Three problems are solved: creep motion under…
We study model near-critical polymer gelling systems made of gluten proteins dispersions stabilized at different distances from the gel point. We impose different shear rates and follow the time evolution of the stress. For sufficiently…
The interplay of topological constraints, excluded volume interactions, persistence length and dynamical entanglement length in solutions and melts of linear chains and ring polymers is investigated by means of kinetic Monte Carlo…
Molecular dynamics simulations were performed for a polymer melt. In quiescent states, the inter-chain interaction energy supported by each particle takes relatively large values persistently for long times if the particle is close to an…
The crystallization of a metastable melt is one of the most important non equilibrium phenomena in condensed matter physics, and hard sphere colloidal model systems have been used for several decades to investigate this process by…
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…
Colloidal gels consist of percolating networks of interconnected arms. Their mechanical properties depend on the individual arms, and on their collective behaviour. We use numerical simulations to pull on a single arm, built from a model…
From biological tissues to layers of paint, macroscopic non-porous materials with the capacity to swell when brought in contact with an appropriate solvent are ubiquitous. Here, we study experimentally and theoretically one of the…
Based on non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of entangled polymer melts, a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. $\textbf{121}$, 047801 (2018), arXiv:1806.09509] claims that the rising extensional stress is quantitatively consistent…