Related papers: A kinetic model of a polyelectrolyte gel undergoin…
Dispersed colloidal particles within a suspension can aggregate and spontaneously self-organize into a robust, percolating structure known as a gel. These network-like structures are prevalent in nature and play a critical role in many…
Alternative approach for description of the non-equilibrium phenomena arising in solids at a severe external loading is analyzed. The approach is based on the new form of kinetic equations in terms of the internal and modified free energy.…
In this article we study a system of nonlinear PDEs modelling the electrokinetics of a nematic electrolyte material consisting of various ions species contained in a nematic liquid crystal. The evolution is described by a system coupling a…
A diffuse-interface model for microstructure with an arbitrary number of components and phases was developed from basic thermodynamic and kinetic principles and formalized within a variational framework. The model includes a composition…
We report a computer simulation study of a model gel-former obtained by modifying the three-body interactions of the Stillinger-Weber potential for silicon. This modification reduces the average coordination number and consequently shifts…
We use numerical simulations and an athermal quasi-static shear protocol to investigate the yielding of a model colloidal gel. Under increasing deformation, the elastic regime is followed by a significant stiffening before yielding takes…
The kinetics of an initially undercooled solid-liquid melt is studied by means of a generalized Phase Field model, which describes the dynamics of an ordering non-conserved field phi (e.g. solid-liquid order parameter) coupled to a…
We numerically study a simple model for thermo-reversible colloidal gelation in which particles can form reversible bonds with a predefined maximum number of neighbors. We focus on three and four maximally coordinated particles, since in…
We study the structure and the dynamics in the formation of irreversible gels by means of molecular dynamics simulation of a model system where the gelation transition is due to the random percolation of permanent bonds between neighboring…
Colloid-polymer mixtures may undergo either fluid-fluid phase separation or gelation. This depends on the depth of the quench (polymer concentration) and polymer-colloid size ratio. We present a real-space study of dynamics in phase…
Nonlinear elastic responses of short and stiff polyelectrolytes are investigated by dynamic simulations on a single molecule level. When a polyelectrolyte condensate undergoes a mechanical unfolding, two types of force-extension curves,…
We study the behavior of single linear polyelectrolytes condensed by trivalent salt under the action of electric fields through computer simulations. The chain is unfolded when the strength of the electric field is stronger than a critical…
We have modeled the layer-by-layer assembly process of flexible polyelectrolytes on flat surfaces. The multilayer has a three-zone structure. An exponential growth is found for the first several layers, followed by a linear growth for…
Using a minimal hydrodynamic model, we theoretically and computationally study active gels in straight and annular two-dimensional channels subject to an externally imposed shear. The gels are isotropic in the absence of externally- or…
We formulate the continuum field equations and constitutive equations that govern deformation, stress, and electric current flow in a Li-ion half-cell. The model considers mass transport through the system, deformation and stress in the…
In this work, a phase-field model is developed for the dendritic growth with gas bubbles in the solidification of binary alloys. In this model, a total free energy for the complex gas-liquid-dendrite system is proposed through considering…
When subjected to electro-mechanical loading, ferroelectrics see their polarization evolve through the nucleation and evolution of domains. Existing mesoscale phase-field models for ferroelectrics are typically based on a gradient-descent…
We develop a new quantitative molecular theory of liquid-phase dipolar polymer gels. We model monomer units of the polymer network as a couple of charged sites separated by a fluctuating distance. For the first time, within the random phase…
Confined granular fluids, placed in a shallow box that is vibrated vertically, can achieve homogeneous stationary states thanks to energy injection mechanisms that take place throughout the system. These states can be stable even at high…
One of the major challenges in contemporary materials science is to build synthetic structures that can mimic responsive biological tissues, such as artificial skins and muscles. Polyelectrolyte hydrogels can provide such mechanoelectrical…