Related papers: Dissipation and recovery in collagen fibrils under…
We present theoretical and experimental studies of the elastic response of fibrous networks subjected to uniaxial strain. Uniaxial compression or extension is applied to extracellular networks of fibrin and collagen using a shear rheometer…
Both animal and plant tissue exhibit a nonlinear rheological phenomenon known as compression stiffening, or an increase in moduli with increasing uniaxial compressive strain. Does such a phenomenon exist in single cells, which are the…
Molecular dynamic simulation enables one to correlate the evolution of the micro-structure with anisotropic stress when a material is subject to strain. The anisotropic stress due to a constant strain-rate load in a cross-linked polymer is…
Sacrificial bonds and hidden length (SBHL) in structural molecules provide a mechanism for energy dissipation at the nanoscale. It is hypothesized that their presence leads to greater fracture toughness than what is observed in materials…
We present a microscopic model of a disordered viscoelastic active solid, i.e. an active material whose long time behaviour is elastic as opposed to viscous. It is composed of filaments, passive crosslinks and molecular motors powered by…
The effect of cyclic loading on relaxation dynamics and mechanical properties of metallic glasses is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. We consider the Kob-Andersen three-dimensional binary mixture rapidly cooled across the glass…
Cyclic loading is a common feature in poroelastic systems, the material response depending non-trivially on the exact form of boundary conditions, pore structure, and mechanical properties. The situation becomes more complex when…
Glasses behave as solids on experimental time scales due to their slow relaxation. Growing dynamic length scales due to cooperative motion of particles are believed to be central to this slow response. For quiescent glasses, however, the…
Many biological processes are supported by special molecules, called motor proteins or molecular motors, that transport cellular cargoes along linear protein filaments and can reversibly associate to their tracks. Stimulated by these…
We have used kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to study the kinetics of unfolding of cross-linked polymer chains under mechanical loading. As the ends of a chain are pulled apart, the force transmitted by each crosslink increases until it…
We present a fiber-distributed model of the reinforcing collagen of the human cornea. The model describes the basic connections between the components of the tissue by defining an elementary block (cell) and upscaling it to the physical…
We study impulse response in 1-D homogeneous micro-granular chains on a linear elastic substrate. Micro-granular interactions are analytically described by the Schwarz contact model which includes nonlinear compressive as well as…
Ring, or cyclic, polymers have unique properties compared to linear polymers, due to their topologically closed structure that has no beginning or end. Experimental measurements on molecular ring polymers are challenging due to their…
Fibrous networks such as collagen are common in physiological systems. One important function of these networks is to provide mechanical stability for cells and tissues. At physiological levels of connectivity, such networks would be…
A new strain energy function for the hyperelastic modelling of ligaments and tendons based on the geometrical arrangement of their fibrils is derived. The distribution of the crimp angles of the fibrils is used to determine the…
Collagen is the key protein of connective tissue (i.e., skin, tendons and ligaments, cartilage, among others) accounting for 25% to 35% of the whole-body protein content, and entitled of conferring mechanical stability. This protein is also…
Experiments and computer simulation studies have revealed existence of rich dynamics in the orientational relaxation of molecules in confined systems such as water in reverse micelles, cyclodextrin cavities and nano-tubes. Here we introduce…
The existence of a very special ratcheting regime has recently been reported in a granular packing subjected to cyclic loading \cite{alonso04}. In this state, the system accumulates a small permanent deformation after each cycle. After a…
Amorphous elastomers exhibit significant rate-stiffening and unique viscous flow characteristics across a wide range of strain rates, often undergoing glass transition above a strain rate threshold. We have developed a…
We propose a statistical model of a large random network with high connectivity in order to describe the behavior of {\it E.\,coli} cells after exposure to acute stress. The building blocks of this network are feedback cycles typical of the…