Related papers: Active pulsatile gels: from chemical microreactor …
I put forward a continuum theory for active nematic gels, defined as fluids or suspensions of orientable rodlike objects endowed with active dynamics, that is based on symmetry arguments and compatibility with thermodynamics. The starting…
The electrophoretic behaviour of flexible polyelectrolyte chains ranging from single monomers up to long fragments of hundred repeat units is studied by a mesoscopic simulation approach. Abstracting from the atomistic details of the…
A biochemical oscillator model, describing developmental stage of myxobacteria, is analyzed mathematically. Observations from numerical simulations show that in a certain range of parameters, the corresponding system of ordinary…
Plasticized poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) is a jelly-like soft dielectric material that attracted substantial interest recently as a new type of electro-active polymers. Under electric fields of several hundred Volt/mm, PVC gels undergo large…
We report numerical results for the hydrodynamics of inhomogeneous lyotropic and extensile active nematic gels. By simulating the coupled Cahn-Hilliard, Navier-Stokes, and Beris-Edwards equation for the evolution of the composition, flow…
The functionality of adhesives relies on their response under the application of a load. Yet, it has remained a challenge to quantitatively relate the macroscopic dynamics of peeling to the dissipative processes inside the adhesive layer.…
Cytoskeletal gels are engineered prototypes that mimic the contractile behavior of a cell in-vitro. They are composed of an active polymer matrix and a liquid solvent. Their contraction kinetics is governed by two dynamic phenomena:…
Porous gels -- gels with solvent-filled pores that are much larger than their mesh size -- are widely used in engineering and biomedical applications due to their tunable mechanics, high water content, and selective permeability. Among…
We study analytically the intricate phase behavior of cross-linked $AB$ diblock copolymer melts, which can undergo two main phase transitions due to quenched random constraints: Gelation, i.e., spatially random localization of polymers…
We study numerically the rheological properties of a slab of active gel close o the isotropic-nematic transition. The flow behavior shows strong dependence on sample size, boundary conditions, and on the bulk constitutive curve, which, on…
We investigate the linear viscoelasticity of polymer gels produced by the dispersion of gluten proteins in water:ethanol binary mixtures with various ethanol contents, from pure water to 60% v/v ethanol. We show that the complex…
Producing food-grade soft particles with controlled structure is of interest to elucidate the structure-properties relationship in soft-particles suspensions. The aim of this work is to evaluate the ability of two elaboration processes to…
We numerically study the dynamics of a passive fluid droplet confined within a microchannel whose walls are covered with a thin layer of active gel. The latter represents a fluid of extensile material modelling, for example, a suspension of…
Living cells exhibit a complex organization comprising numerous compartments, among which are RNA- and protein-rich membraneless, liquid-like organelles known as biomolecular condensates. Energy-consuming processes regulate their formation…
The submicron- and micron-scale structures of composite hydrogels based on bacterial cellulose (BC) and polyacrylamide were studied by spin-echo small-angle neutron scattering (SESANS). These hydrogels were synthesized via free-radical…
Phase separation, the spontaneous segregation of density, is a ubiquitous phenomenon observed across diverse physical and biological systems. Within a crowd of motile elements, active phase separation emerges from the interplay of activity…
Lattice Boltzmann simulations have become a method of choice to solve the hydrodynamic equations of motion of a number of complex fluids. Here we review some recent applications of lattice Boltzmann to study the hydrodynamics of liquid…
The formation of colloidal gels is strongly dependent on the volume fraction of the system and the strength of the interactions between the colloids. Here we explore very dilute solutions by the means of numerical simulations, and show…
We examine microstructural and mechanical changes which occur during oscillatory shear flow and reformation after flow cessation of an intermediate volume fraction colloidal gel using rheometry and Brownian Dynamics (BD) simulations. A…
In this paper we present the results of a large-scale numerical investigation of structural properties of a model of cell membrane, simulated as a bilayer of flexible molecules in vacuum. The study was performed by carrying out extensive…