Related papers: Programming hydrogel adhesion with engineered poly…
Robotic systems operating in unstructured environments require the ability to switch between compliant and rigid states to perform diverse tasks such as adaptive grasping, high-force manipulation, shape holding, and navigation in…
Adhesion is a fundamental phenomenon that plays a role in many engineering and biological applications. This paper concerns the use of machine learning to characterize the effective adhesive properties when a thin film is peeled from a…
The design of hydrogels that combine mechanical robustness with dynamic reconfigurability remains a fundamental challenge, as increasing crosslink dissociation rates compromise network integrity. This limitation is addressed through the…
Soft materials possessing tunable rheological properties are desirable in applications ranging from 3D printing to biological scaffolds. Here, we use a telechelic, triblock copolymer polystyrene-b-poly(ethylene oxide)-b-polystyrene (SEOS)…
Knitting turns yarn, a 1D material, into a 2D fabric that is flexible, durable [1], and can be patterned to adopt a wide range of 3D geometries [2]. Like other mechanical metamaterials [3], the elasticity of knitted fabrics is an emergent…
Fibre-reinforced hydrogels are promising materials for biomedical applications due to their strength, toughness, and tunability. However, it remains unclear how to design fibre-reinforced hydrogels for use in specific applications due to…
The ability to tune the microstructures formed by block copolymers using accessible physical approaches provides control for practical material applications. A common strategy involves the addition of homopolymers, which can induce…
For various engineering and industrial applications it is desirable to realize mechanical systems with broadly adjustable elasticity to respond flexibly to the external environment. Here we discover a topology-correlated transition between…
Soft robots have been leveraged in considerable areas like surgery, rehabilitation, and bionics due to their softness, flexibility, and safety. However, it is challenging to produce two same soft robots even with the same mold and…
Soft interfaces formed by lipid membranes are fundamental to living cells, synthetic cells, and membrane-based soft materials. However, a quantitative framework linking molecular organization with nonlinear interfacial mechanics remains…
Self-healing polymers crosslinked by solely reversible bonds are intrinsically weaker than common covalently crosslinked networks. Introducing covalent crosslinks into a reversible network would improve mechanical strength. It is…
Indentation is a common experimental technique to study the mechanics of polymeric materials. The main advantage of using indentation is because this provides a direct correlation between the microstructure and the small-scale mechanical…
Topology optimization is a powerful tool utilized in various fields for structural design. However, its application has primarily been restricted to static or passively moving objects, mainly focusing on hard materials with limited…
Artificially engineered geometric phase optical elements may have tunable photonic functionalities owing to sensitivity to external fields, as is the case for liquid crystals based devices. However, a liquid crystal technology combining…
Entangled networks are ubiquitous in tissues, polymers, and fabrics. However, their mechanics remain insufficiently understood due to the complexity of the topological constraints at the network level. Here, we develop a mathematical…
In traditional topology optimization, the computing time required to iteratively update the material distribution within a design domain strongly depends on the complexity or size of the problem, limiting its application in real engineering…
Soft nanoparticles hold promise as smart emulsifiers due to their high degree of deformability, permeability and stimuli responsive properties. By means of large-scale simulations we investigate the structural properties of nanogels at…
Hydrogels are biphasic, swollen polymer networks where elastic deformation is coupled to nanoscale fluid flow. As a consequence, hydrogels can withstand large strains and exhibit nonlinear, hyperelastic properties. For low-modulus hydrogel…
Biological systems achieve adaptive mechanical responses through reaction-diffusion processes that couple chemical wave propagation to structural transitions. Although synthetic hydrogels with enzymatic reactions offer a platform for…
We perform off-lattice, canonical ensemble molecular dynamics simulations of the self-assembly of long segmented copolymers consisting of alternating, tunably attractive and hydrophobic {\em binder} domains, connected by hydrophilic {\em…