Related papers: Unconstrained dynamic gel swelling generates trans…
Recent theory and experiments have shown how the buildup of a high-concentration polymer layer at a one-dimensional solvent-air interface can lead to an evaporation rate that scales with time as $t^{-1/2}$ and that is insensitive to the…
The structure and dynamics of aqueous solvation of ethanol and ethylene are studied by DFT-based Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics. We did not find an enhancement of the structure of the hydrogen bonded network of hydrating water molecules.…
As an experimental model to mimic the flow of bio-fluids in the cell and the flow in tiny blood capillaries, we study the co-moving shear flow of dilute polymeric solutions. An inflection point shear flow profile is created by parallel…
Colloidal gels have unique mechanical and transport properties that stem from their bicontinous nature, in which a colloidal network is intertwined with a viscous solvent, and have found numerous applications in foods, cosmetics,…
We investigate the wrinkling dynamics of a thin elastic sheet that is indented or compressed while floating on a viscous liquid. We show that the deformation speed controls the dynamics, leading to a wrinkle wavelength significantly smaller…
Thermoresponsive microgels are polymeric colloidal networks that can change their size in response to a temperature variation. This peculiar feature is driven by the nature of the solvent-polymer interactions, which triggers the so-called…
Three general modes are distinguished in the deformation of a thin shell; these are stretching, drilling, and bending. Of these, the drilling mode is the one more likely to emerge in a soft matter shell (as compared to a hard, structural…
Molecular dynamics simulations have been employed to study the formation of a physical (thermoreversible) gel by amphiphilic A-B-A triblock copolymers in aqueous solution. In order to mimic the structure of hydrogel-forming polypeptides…
Relaxation of shear bands in a Pd40Ni40P20 bulk metallic glass was investigated by a combination of radiotracer diffusion and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, allowing to determine for the first time the effective activation enthalpy of…
The next generation of soft electronics will expand to the third dimension. This will require the integration of mechanically-compliant three-dimensional functional structures with stretchable materials. This study demonstrates…
We report on the fluidization dynamics of an attractive gel composed of non-Brownian particles made of fused silica colloids. Extensive rheology coupled to ultrasonic velocimetry allows us to characterize the global stress response together…
Using experiments and numerical simulations, we investigate the spontaneous spreading of droplets of aqueous glycerol (Newtonian) and aqueous polymer (shear-thinning) solutions on smooth surfaces. We find that in the first millisecond the…
Liquid droplets on soft solids, such as soft polymeric gels, can induce substantial surface deformations, leading to the formation of wetting ridges at contact points. While these contact ridges have been shown to govern the rich surface…
Disordered filamentous networks with compliant crosslinks exhibit a low linear elastic shear modulus at small strains, but stiffen dramatically at high strains. Experiments have shown that the elastic modulus can increase by up to three…
We visualize entanglements in polymer melts using molecular dynamics simulation. A bead at an entanglement interacts persistently for long times with the non-bonded beads (those excluding the adjacent ones in the same chain). The…
We investigate the swelling and shrinking of L_beta lamellar gel phases composed of surfactant and fatty alcohol after contact with aqueous poly(ethylene-glycol) solutions. The height change $\Delta h(t)$ is diffusion-like with a swelling…
Viscoelastic and thermodynamic properties of transient gels comprised of telechelic polymers are theoretically studied. We extend classical theories of transient networks so that correlations among polymer chains through the network…
We propose and study a simplified model for the surface and bulk structures of crosslinked polymer gels, into which voids are introduced through templating by surfactant micelles. Such systems were recently studied by Atomic Force…
Acid-induced release of stored ions from polyacrylic acid hydrogels (with a free surface fully permeable to the ion and acid flux) was observed to increase the gel osmotic pressure that leads to rapid, temporary swelling faster than the…
Using coarse-grained molecular-dynamics simulations, a generic styrene-(block)-butadiene-(block)-styrene (SBS) triblock copolymer under lamellar conformation is used in order to investigate the mutual entanglement evolution when a structure…