Related papers: Network evolution controlling strain-induced damag…
A constitutive model is developed for the mechanical response of elastomers at finite strains. A polymer is treated as a network of linear chains linked by permanent (chemical crosslinks) and temporary (entanglements and van der Waals…
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…
Motivated by recent experiments showing nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin cross-linked with filamin, we present an effective medium theory of flexibly cross-linked stiff polymer networks. We model such…
This paper extends the deep material network (DMN) proposed by Liu et al. (2019) to tackle general 3-dimensional (3D) problems with arbitrary material and geometric nonlinearities. It discovers a new way of describing multiscale…
We consider the impact of the elastomer network on the structure and fluctuations in the isotropic-genesis nematic elastomer, via a phenomenological model that underscores the role of network compliance. The model contains a…
Biopolymer networks from the intracellular to tissue scale display high rigidity and tensile stress while having coordinations well below the normal threshold for mechanical rigidity. The elastic filaments in these networks are often…
The effect of network chain distribution on the mechanical behavior of elastomers is one of the long-standing problems in rubber mechanics. The classical theory of rubber elasticity is built upon the assumption of entropic elasticity of…
Understanding plastic deformation of crystals in terms of the fundamental physics of dislocations has remained a grand challenge in materials science for decades. To overcome this, the Discrete Dislocation Dynamics (DDD) method has been…
The mechanics of complex soft matter often cannot be understood in the classical physical frame of flexible polymers or rigid rods. The underlying constituents are semiflexible polymers, whose finite bending stiffness ($\kappa$) leads to…
Disordered athermal biopolymer materials, such as collagen networks that constitute a major component in extracellular matrices and various connective tissues, are initially soft and compliant but stiffen dramatically under strain. Such…
Elastic effects in a model of disordered nematic elastomers are numerically investigated in two dimensions. Networks crosslinked in the isotropic phase exhibit unusual soft mechanical response against stretching. It arises from gradual…
Living tissues show an extraordinary adaptiveness to strain, which is crucial for their proper biological functioning. The physical origin of this mechanical behaviour has been widely investigated using reconstituted networks of collagen…
Low-connectivity polymer networks were recently found to behave auxetically when subjected to small tensions, that is, their Poisson's ratio $\nu$ becomes negative. In addition, for specific state points, numerical simulations revealed that…
Transport of tracer particles through mesh-like environments such as biological hydrogels and polymer matrices is ubiquitous in nature. These tracers could be passive, such as colloids or active (self-propelled), such as synthetic…
The diffusion of molecules (penetrants) of variable size, shape, and chemistry through dense crosslinked polymer networks is a fundamental scientific problem that is broadly relevant in materials, polymer, physical and biological chemistry.…
While most chemical bonds weaken under the action of mechanical force (called slip bond behavior), nature has developed bonds that do the opposite: their lifetime increases as force is applied. While such catch bonds have been studied quite…
Phase separation within polymer networks plays a central role in shaping the structure and mechanics of both synthetic materials and living cells, including the formation of biomolecular condensates within cytoskeletal networks. Previous…
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 theory for the elasticity of cross-linked stiff polymer networks. Stiff polymers, unlike their flexible counterparts, are highly anisotropic elastic objects. Similar to mechanical beams stiff polymers easily deform in bending,…
We propose a precise and efficient physics-augmented neural network (PANN) to model strain-induced crystallization in rubbery polymers. We demonstrate that the model can be flexibly employed for both unfilled and filled natural rubber (NR).…