Related papers: Evanescent Gels: Competition Between Sticker Dynam…
Reversible crosslinking is a design paradigm for polymeric materials, wherein they are microscopically reinforced with chemical species that form transient crosslinks between the polymer chains. Besides the potential for self-healing,…
We constrast the dynamics in model unentangled polymer melts of chains of three different stiffnesses: flexible, intermediate, and rodlike. Flexible and rodlike chains, which readily solidify into close-packed crystals (respectively with…
We study the relaxation dynamics of a coarse-grained polymer chain at different degrees of stretching by both analytical means and numerical simulations. The macromolecule is modelled as a string of beads, connected by anharmonic springs,…
The equilibrium properties of polymer droplets on a soft deformable surface are investigated by molecular dynamics simulations of a bead-spring model. The surface consists of a polymer brush with irreversibly end-tethered linear homopolymer…
The elasticity of rubbery polymer networks has been considered to be entropy-driven. On the other hand, studies on single polymer chain mechanics have revealed that the elasticity of ultimately stretched polymer chains is dominated by the…
Several surfactant molecules self-assemble in solution to form long, flexible wormlike micelles which get entangled with each other, leading to viscoelastic gel phases. We discuss our recent work on the rheology of such a gel formed in the…
Vitrimers are a class of polymers characterized by dynamic covalent networks, where specific monomer units, which are know as stickers, form reversible crosslinks that enable network rearrangement without loss of overall connectivity. The…
We report a molecular dynamics simulation study of a model gel whose interaction potential is obtained by modifying the three body Stillinger-Weber model potential for silicon. The modification reduces the average coordination number, and…
Recent experimental investigations have revealed a non-Maxwellian absorption pattern in the rheological spectra of actin gels, which was interpreted in terms of transient bonds. Here we examine the consequences of reversible crosslinking on…
We determine the linear viscoelastic response of jammed packings of athermal repulsive viscous spheres, a model for emulsions, wet foams, and soft colloidal suspensions. We numerically measure the complex shear modulus, a fundamental…
Dimerization and subsequent aggregation of polymers and biopolymers often occur under nonequilibrium conditions. When the initial state of the polymer is not collapsed or the final folded native state, the dynamics of dimerization can…
The normal modes and relaxation rates of weak colloidal gels are investigated in computations employing different models of the hydrodynamic interactions between colloids. The eigenspectrum is computed for freely draining,…
The structural arrest of a polymeric suspension might be driven by an increase of the cross--linker concentration, that drives the gel transition, as well as by an increase of the polymer density, that induces a glass transition. These…
We investigate the gel formation from the equilibrium sol phase in a simple model that has the characteristics of (colloidal) gel-forming systems at a finite temperature. At low volume fraction and low temperatures, particles are linked by…
The dynamic properties of a model transient network have been studied by dynamic light scattering. The network is formed by microemulsion droplets linked by telechelic polymers (modified hydrophilic polymers with two grafted hydrophobic…
The adhesion between a polymer melt and substrate is studied in the presence of chemically attached chains on the substrate surface. Extensive molecular dynamics simulations have been carried out to study the effect of temperature, tethered…
Using molecular dynamics computer simulations we investigate the structural and dynamical properties of a simple model for a colloidal gel at low volume fraction. We find that at low T the system is forming an open percolating cluster,…
Molecular dynamics simulations were conducted to investigate the dynamic properties of melts of nonconcatenated ring polymers and compared to melts of linear polymers. The longest rings were composed of N=1600 monomers per chain which…
In this paper we study a system of entangled chains that bear reversible cross-links in a melt state. The cross-links are tethered uniformly on the backbone of each chain. A slip-link type model for the system is presented and solved for…
The water flow through the poly(acrylamide) gel under a constant water pressure is measured by newly designed apparatus. The time evolution of the water flow in the gel, is calculated based on the collective diffusion model of the polymer…