Related papers: Phantom chain simulations for fracture of polymer …
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…
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…
The influence of node functionality (f) on the fracture of polymer networks remains unclear. While many studies have focused on multi-functional nodes with f>4, recent research suggests that networks with f=3 exhibit superior fracture…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
A polymer network fractures by breaking covalent bonds, but the experimentally measured strength of the polymer network is orders of magnitude lower than the strength of covalent bonds. We investigate the effect of statistical variation of…
Conformational properties of regular dendrimers and more general hyperbranched polymer stars with Gaussian statistics for the spacer chains between branching points are revisited numerically. We investigate the scaling for asymptotically…
We present large statistics simulations of 3-dimensional star polymers with up to $f=80$ arms, and with up to 4000 monomers per arm for small values of $f$. They were done for the Domb-Joyce model on the simple cubic lattice. This is a…
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…
We investigate the static and dynamic properties of dendrimers diffusing through a network of linear associative polymers using coarse-grained Brownian dynamics simulations. Both dendrimers and network chains are modelled as bead-spring…
We investigate the efficiency of gelation and network formation in telechelic star polymer melt, where the tips of polymer arms are dipoles while rest of the monomers are uncharged. Our work is motivated by the experimental observations…
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…
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 $\phi_R$.…