Related papers: Crosslinker energy landscape effects on dynamic me…
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,…
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…
Vitrimers are polymer networks that can undergo bond exchange reactions. They dynamically rearrange their structures while maintaining their overall integrity, thus resulting in unique properties such as self-healing, reprocessability,…
This paper extends a field-theoretical dynamical networking formalism for mesoscopic polymer dynamics to explicitly include dedicated cross-linker particles. Cross-linkers are represented within a Martin-Siggia-Rose generating functional…
Adding dynamic bonds in polymer networks enables reprocessing and recycling; however the full impact of reversible bonds on dynamic network mechanics remains unclear. We build model dynamic networks and observe substantial deviations from…
Hydrogels are crosslinked polymer networks with high water content, widely employed in biomedical applications such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. Injectable, depot-forming hydrogels enable sustained…
Polymer gels with photo-responsive cross-links enable tunable mechanics and surface morphologies, making them promising for adaptive materials. While prior work on coumarin cross-linked gels has focused on photo-mediated events in dilute…
Transient networks comprised of polymers connected by short-lived bonds are a common design theme for both biological and synthetic materials. Transient bonds can provide mechanical rigidity, while still allowing for visco-elastic flows on…
We investigate theoretically the effect of polymer tension on the collective behavior of reversibly binding cross-links. For this purpose, we employ a model of two weakly bending wormlike chains aligned in parallel by a tensile force, with…
We perform equilibrium Langevin dynamics simulations to understand the structure-viscoelasticity relationship of a dually crosslinked reversible polymer network. The cross-linking is achieved by introducing orthogonal crosslinkers (A and B)…
Vitrimers are a class of crosslinked polymer that are capable of undergoing bond exchange reactions, allowing structural reorganization while maintaining overall network integrity. Two key features that are particularly relevant when this…
The structure of polymer networks, defined by chain lengths and connectivity patterns, fundamentally influences their bulk properties. While existing polymer network models connect chain properties to emergent network behavior, they are…
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…
We present a theoretical framework for the linear and nonlinear visco-elastic properties of reversibly crosslinked networks of semiflexible polymers. In contrast to affine models where network strain couples to the polymer end-to-end…
We propose a theoretical framework for dealing with a transient polymer network undergoing small deformations, based on the rate of breaking and re-forming of network crosslinks and the evolving elastic reference state. In this framework,…
Vitrimers are a special class of polymers that undergo dynamic cross-linking under thermal stimuli. Their ability to exchange covalent bonds can be harnessed to mitigate damage in a composite or to achieve recyclable aerospace composites.…
Hybrid double-network hydrogels are a class of material that comprise transiently and permanently crosslinked polymer networks and exhibit an enhanced toughness that is believed to be governed by the yielding of the transient polymer…
While polymer solutions lack the mechanical stability only transiently cross-linked networks can fulfill the competing requirements of structural stability and maximal energy dissipation. Here, we show that transient cross-links entail…
Surface stress and surface energy are two fundamental parameters that determine the surface properties of any materials. While it is commonly believed that the surface stress and surface energy of liquids are identical, the relationship…
In this thesis the formation and properties of a polymer gel on and at a surface are investigated. The gel under investigation is defined as a three-dimensional network of "phantom" macromolecules that form permanent links with one another…