Related papers: Hyperelastic swelling of stiff hydrogels
In fracture mechanics, polyacrylamide hydrogels have been widely used as a model material for experiments, benefited from its optical transparency, fracture brittleness, and low Rayleigh wave velocity. To describe the brittle fracture in…
Double network hydrogels show remarkable mechanical performance, combining high strength and fracture toughness with sufficient stiffness to bear load, despite containing only a low density of cross-linked polymer molecules in water. We…
Tough adhesive hydrogels find broad applications in engineering and medicine. Such hydrogels feature high resistance against both cohesion and adhesion failure. The superior fracture properties may, however, deteriorate when the hydrogels…
Thermo-responsive hydrogels are a promising material for creating controllable actuators for use in micro-scale devices, since they expand and contract significantly (absorbing or expelling fluid) in response to relatively small temperature…
Dispersing small particles in a liquid can produce surprising behaviors when the solids fraction becomes large: rapid shearing drives these systems out of equilibrium and can lead to dramatic increases in viscosity (shear-thickening) or…
Folded protein hydrogels are prime candidates as tuneable biomaterials but it is unclear to what extent their mechanical properties have mesoscopic, as opposed to molecular origins. To address this, we probe hydrogels of the muscle-derived…
Motivated by recent experiments showing that stiff biopolymer gels exhibit highly unusual negative normal elastic stresses, we develop a computational model for stiff polymer networks subject to large strains. In all cases, we find that…
Naturally occurring protein fibers often undergo anisotropic swelling when hydrated. Within a tendon, a hydrated collagen fibril's radius expands by 40% but its length only increases by 5%. The same effect, with a similar relative…
Colloidal magnetic particles embedded in an elastic polymer matrix constitute a smart material called ferrogel. It responds to an applied external magnetic field by changes in elastic properties, which can be exploited for various…
We present the results of an experimental investigation into buoyant rigid spheres rising through highly concentrated collections of hydrated hydrogel particles. The volume fraction of particles is such that the mechanical properties of the…
We investigate wrinkling of two-dimensional random and triangular semiflexible polymer networks under shear. Both types of semiflexible networks exhibit wrinkling above a small critical shear angle, which scales with an exponent of the…
Extensibility is beyond the paradigm of classical soft glassy materials, and more broadly, yield-stress fluids. Recently, model yield-stress fluids with significant extensibility have been designed by adding polymeric phases to classically…
When elastic solids are sheared, a nonlinear effect named after Poynting gives rise to normal stresses or changes in volume. We provide a novel relation between the Poynting effect and the microscopic Gr\"uneisen parameter, which quantifies…
Water evaporation is critically important for hydrogels in open-air applications, but theoretically modeling is difficult due to the complicated intermolecular interactions and sustained deformation. In this work, we construct a simplified…
Microgels are soft colloidal particles constituted by cross-linked polymer networks with a high potential for applications. In particular, after adsorption at a fluid interface, interfacial tension provides two-dimensional (2D) confinement…
We investigate the hydroelastic wake created by a perturbation moving at constant speed along a thin elastic sheet floating at the surface of deep water. Using a high-resolution cross-correlation imaging technique, we characterize the waves…
By adding minute concentrations of a high molecular weight polymer, liquid jets or bridges collapsing under the action of surface tension develop a characteristic shape of uniform threads connecting spherical fluid drops. In this paper,…
We study computationally the creep and yielding of athermal gels and fibre network materials under a constant imposed shear stress, within a minimal model of interconnected filaments with central forces in $d=2$ spatial dimensions. Each…
High-strength composite hydrogels cellulose-polyacrylamide were synthesized by free-radical polymerization of acrylamide conducted inside the previously formed physical network of regenerated plant cellulose. Partial hydrolysis of the amide…
Obstructions influence the growth and expansion of bodies in a wide range of settings -- but isolating and understanding their impact can be difficult in complex environments. Here, we study obstructed growth/expansion in a model system…