Related papers: Entanglement transition in random rod packings
We study the elasticity of a two-dimensional random network of rigid rods (``Mikado model''). The essential features incorporated into the model are the anisotropic elasticity of the rods and the random geometry of the network. We show that…
Aiming at simulating elastic rods, we discretize a rod model based on a general theory of hyperelasticity for inextensible and unshearable rods. After reviewing this model and discussing topological effects of periodic rods, we prove…
Topological constraints (TCs) between polymers determine the behaviour of complex fluids such as creams, oils and plastics. Most of the polymer solutions used every day life employ linear chains; their behaviour is accurately captured by…
We present atomistic molecular dynamics simulations of two Polyethylene systems where all entanglements are trapped: a perfect network, and a melt with grafted chain ends. We examine microscopically at what level topological constraints can…
The interplay between the topological and geometrical properties of a polymer ring can be clarified by establishing the entanglement trapped in any portion (arc) of the ring. The task requires to close the open arcs into a ring, and the…
We investigate the stability and geometrically non-linear dynamics of slender rods made of a linear isotropic poroelastic material. Dimensional reduction leads to the evolution equation for the shape of the poroelastica where, in addition…
The structure of random sphere packings in mechanical equilibrium in prescribed stress states, as studied by molecular dynamics simulations, strongly depends on the assembling procedure. Frictionless packings in the limit of low pressure…
Flow in soft materials encompasses a wide range of viscous, plastic and elastic phenomena which provide challenges to modelling at the microscopic level. To create a controlled flow, we perform falling ball viscometry tests on packings of…
It is widely accepted that the dynamic of entanglement in presence of a generic circuit can be predicted by the knowledge of the statistical properties of the entanglement spectrum. We tested this assumption by applying a Metropolis-like…
We conduct experiments and simulations to study the disordered packing of rods in small containers. Experiments study cylindrical rods with aspect ratio ranging from 4 to 32; simulations use of spherocylinders with similar aspect ratios. In…
We investigate the formation of helical multifilament bundles and the torque required to achieve them as a function of applied twist. Hyperelastic filaments with circular cross sections are mounted parallel in a uniform circle onto…
Entangled materials offer attractive structural features including tensile strength and large deformations, combined with infinite assembly and disassembly capabilities. How the geometry of individual particles governs entanglement, and in…
We review a recently proposed theory of random packings. We describe the volume fluctuations in jammed matter through a volume function, amenable to analytical and numerical calculations. We combine an extended statistical mechanics…
Studying entanglement growth in quantum dynamics provides both insight into the underlying microscopic processes and information about the complexity of the quantum states, which is related to the efficiency of simulations on classical…
We present a methodology to simulate the mechanics of knots in elastic rods using geometrically nonlinear, full three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis. We focus on the mechanical behavior of knots in tight configurations, for which…
Packing problems, which ask how to arrange a collection of objects in space to meet certain criteria, are important in a great many physical and biological systems, where geometrical arrangements at small scales control behaviour at larger…
We investigate entanglement of strongly interacting fermions in spatially inhomogeneous environments. To quantify entanglement in the presence of spatial inhomogeneity, we propose a local-density approximation (LDA) to the entanglement…
The effects of entanglement in solutions and melts of unknotted ring polymers have been addressed by several theoretical and numerical studies. The system properties have been typically profiled as a function of ring contour length at fixed…
Brownian motion and viscoelasticity of semiflexible polymers is a subject that has been studied for many years. Still, rigorous analysis has been hindered due to the difficulty in handling the constraint that polymer chains cannot be…
Extensive molecular simulations are applied to characterize the equilibrium dynamics, entanglement topology, and nonlinear extensional rheology of symmetric ring-linear polymer blends with systematically varied ring fraction $\phi_R$.…