Related papers: Phantom-Chain Simulations for the Effect of Node F…
Despite many attempts, the relation between fracture and structure of polymer networks is yet to be clarified. For this problem, a recent study for phantom chain simulations [Macromolecules, 56, 9359 (2023)] has demonstrated that the…
Fujiyabu et al. have experimentally reported that mixing of 3-arm star prepolymers into 4-arm analog improves the toughness of the resultant polymer networks compared to the base network composed of 4-arm star polymers only. For the…
Despite numerous studies, the relationship between network structure and fracture remains unclear. In this study, the fracture properties of end-linking networks were compared with those of loop-free analogs made from star prepolymers by…
By phantom chain simulations, it has been recently discovered that the fracture characteristics of star polymer networks with different node functionality and conversion ratios can be described by the cycle rank of the networks [Masubuchi…
This study investigated the fracture of star polymer networks made from prepolymers with various arm molecular weights in the range $2 \leq N_a \leq 0$, for node functionalities $3 \leq f \leq 8$ and conversion ratios…
Based on a recent simulation study [Masubuchi et al., Macromolecules, 56, 9359 (2023)], the cycle rank plays a significant role in determining the fracture characteristics of network polymers. However, the study only considered…
This study systematically investigates the effect of stretching boundary conditions, ranging from conservation of cross-sectional area to conservation of volume, on the rupture behavior of phantom star polymer networks using…
The relationship between the topological architecture of polymer networks and their macroscopic rupture remains a fundamental challenge in polymer physics. Recent coarse-grained simulations have revealed that the dependence of stretch at…
We investigate the effect of the number of arms (functionality f ) on the mobility of the branch point in symmetric star polymers. For this purpose we carry out large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of simple bead-spring stars and…
This study demonstrates that the apparent complexity of fracture in phantom-chain polymer networks is fully decoupled into two universal master curves: (i) macroscopic softening governed by the absolute stretch, and (ii) microscopic…
Using the bond fluctuation model we study polymer networks obtained by endlinking of symmetric 4-arm star polymers. We consider two types of systems. Solutions of one type (A) of star polymers and solution of two types (A,B) of star polymer…
The impact of finite cycles on the phantom modulus in an otherwise perfect network is computed exactly. It is shown that pending cycles reduce the phantom modulus of the network by $kT/V$ independent of junction functionality. The…
Materials with network-like microstructure, including polymers, are the backbone for many natural and human-made materials such as gels, biological tissues, metamaterials, and rubbers. Fracture processes in these networked materials are…
Entanglement of polymer chains is ubiquitous in elastomers, gels, and biological tissues. While the effects of chain entanglement on elasticity and viscoelasticity of polymer networks have been intensively studied, it remains elusive how…
Fractals are self-similar and scale-invariant patterns found ubiquitously in nature. A lot of evidences implying fractal properties such as 1/f power spectrums have been also observed in resting state fMRI time series. To explain the…
The stress response of polymer double networks depends not only on the properties of the constituent networks, but also on the interactions arising between them. Here we demonstrate, via coarse-grained simulations, that both their global…
Inspired by the ubiquity of composite filamentous networks in nature we investigate models of biopolymer networks that consist of interconnected floppy and stiff filaments. Numerical simulations carried out in three dimensions allow us to…
Elastomers are modeled as networks with $\phi $-functional junctions containing $N$ ideal, $n$-segment, freely jointed chains (FJCs) per unit volume (p.u.v.). Our compact model of the exact FJC length probability density (Treloar, 1975),…
The mechanics of single-chain stretching and rupture are central to understanding the resilience of biological polymers and designing strong and tough soft materials such as double-network gels and multi-network elastomers. In this work, we…
Real networks are vulnerable to random failures and malicious attacks. However, when a node is harmed or damaged, it may remain partially functional, which helps to maintain the overall network structure and functionality. In this paper, we…