Related papers: Statistical field theory for nonlinear elasticity …
A fundamental theory is presented for the mechanical response of polymer networks undergoing large deformation which seamlessly integrates statistical mechanical principles with macroscopic thermodynamic constitutive theory. Our formulation…
Statistical mechanics is an important tool for understanding polymer electroelasticity because the elasticity of polymers is primarily due to entropy. However, a common approach for the statistical mechanics of polymer chains, the Gaussian…
The electromechanical response of polymeric soft matter to applied electric fields is of fundamental scientific interest as well as relevant to technologies for sensing and actuation. Several existing theoretical and numerical approaches…
The role of solvent quality in determining the universal material properties of dilute polymer solutions undergoing steady simple shear flow is examined. A bead-spring chain representation of the polymer molecule is used, and the influence…
Strain energy density is calculated for a network of flexible chains with weak excluded-volume interactions (whose energy is small compared with thermal energy). Constitutive equations are developed for an incompressible network of chains…
Stretching an elastic material along one axis typically induces contraction along the transverse axes, a phenomenon known as the Poisson effect. From these strains, one can compute the specific volume, which generally either increases or,…
The effect of excluded volume interactions on the structure of a polymer in shear flow is investigated by Brownian Dynamics simulations for chains with size $30\leq N\leq 300$. The main results concern the structure factor $S({\bf q})$ of…
The classical bond-fluctuation model (BFM) is an efficient lattice Monte Carlo algorithm for coarse-grained polymer chains where each monomer occupies exclusively a certain number of lattice sites. In this paper we propose a generalization…
Linear viscoelastic properties for a dilute polymer solution are predicted by modeling the solution as a suspension of non-interacting bead-spring chains. The present model, unlike the Rouse model, can describe the solution's rheological…
The Rouse model has recently been modified to take into account the excluded volume interactions that exist between various parts of a polymer chain by incorporating a narrow Gaussian repulsive potential between pairs of beads on the Rouse…
Following the Flory ideality hypothesis intrachain and interchain excluded volume interactions are supposed to compensate each other in dense polymer systems. Multi-chain effects should thus be neglected and polymer conformations may be…
Polymeric materials that couple deformation and electrostatics have the potential for use in soft sensors and actuators with potential applications ranging from robotic, biomedical, energy, aerospace and automotive technologies. In contrast…
This study presents a Eulerian theory to elucidate the molecular kinematics in polymer networks and their connection to continuum deformation, grounded in fundamental statistical physics and thermodynamics. Three key innovations are…
A number of recent experiments have provided detailed observations of the configurations of long DNA strands under nano-to-micrometer sized confinement. We therefore revisit the problem of an excluded volume polymer chain confined between…
In this work a new strategy is proposed in order to build analytic and microscopic models of fluctuating polymer rings subjected to topological constraints. The topological invariants used to fix these constraints belong to a wide class of…
We numerically examine the nonlinear rubber elasticity of topologically constrained polymer networks. We propose a simple and effective model based on Graessley and Pearson's topological model (GP model) for describing the topological…
Predicting the macroscopic mechanical behavior of polymeric materials from the micro-structural features has remained a challenge for decades. Existing theoretical models often fail to accurately capture the experimental data, due to…
Polymer network models construct the constitutive relationships of a broader polymer network from the behavior of a single polymer chain (e.g. viscoelastic response to applied forces, applied electromagnetic fields, etc.). Network models…
We present a theory for the elasticity of cross-linked stiff polymer networks. Stiff polymers, unlike their flexible counterparts, are highly anisotropic elastic objects. Similar to mechanical beams stiff polymers easily deform in bending,…
Evaluating accessible conformational space is computationally expensive and thermal motions are partly neglected in computer models of molecular interactions. This produces error into the estimates of binding strength. We introduce a method…