Related papers: Ultimately deformed double-network gels possess po…
A theoretical model of electromigrative, diffusive and convectivetransport polymer-gel composites is presented. Bulk properties are derived from the standard electrokinetic model with an impenetrable charged sphere embedded in an…
We develop a continuum elastic approach to examining the bending mechanics of semiflexible filaments with a local internal degree of freedom that couples to the bending modulus. We apply this model to study the nonlinear mechanics of a…
Due to their unique structural and mechanical properties, randomly-crosslinked polymer networks play an important role in many different fields, ranging from cellular biology to industrial processes. In order to elucidate how these…
The coupled dynamics of entangled polymers which span a broad time and length scales govern the unique viscoelastic properties of polymers. To follow chain mobility by numerical simulations from the intermediate Rouse and reptation regimes…
Physically assembled gels have promising applications in many fields because of their tunable mechanical properties. Here, we report the mechanical properties as a function of polymer volume fraction ($\phi$) for a physical gel system…
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…
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…
This work extends the classical dumbbell (two-bead) model of polymer chains to a more detailed multi-bead representation, where each polymer chain consists of $N$ beads connected by $N-1$ springs. We develop a thermodynamically consistent…
A non-Newtonian flow of a polymer melt is discussed. The description of the exponential decrease of the apparent viscosity by the well-known Eyring formula with an activation energy reduction proportional to the shear stress does not take…
Understanding the coupled thermo-mechanical behaviour of compacted granular beds can benefit various industrial applications, such as pebble bed design in fusion reactors. In this study, a thermo-mechanical discrete element method based on…
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…
While stretching of most polymer chains leads to rather featureless force-extension diagrams, some, notably DNA, exhibit non-trivial behavior with a distinct plateau region. Here we propose a unified theory that connects force-extension…
We show that gels formed by arrested spinodal decomposition of protein solutions exhibit elastic properties in two distinct frequency domains, both elastic moduli exhibiting a remarkably strong dependence on volume fraction. Considering the…
Temperature dependent transport of disordered electronic systems is examined in the presence of strong correlations. In contrast to what is assumed in Fermi liquid approaches, finite temperature behavior in this regime proves largely…
We employ a first principles, force-level approach to self-consistently construct the anharmonic tube confinement field for entangled fluids of rigid needles and for primitive-path (PP) level chains in two limiting situations where chain…
Liquid crystal networks exploit the coupling between the responsivity of liquid-crystalline mesogens, e.g., to electric fields, and the (visco)elastic properties of a polymer network. Because of this, these materials have been put forward…
We report evidence of irregular unsteady flow of two-dimensional polymer solutions in the absence of inertia in cross-slot geometry using numerical simulations of Oldroyd-B model. By exploring the transition to time-dependent flow versus…
We explore the transport features of a single flexible polymer chain that walks on a periodic ratchet potential coupled with spatially varying temperature. At steady state the polymer exhibits a fast unidirectional motion where the…
The elastic energy of mixing for multi-component solid solutions is derived by generalizing Eshelby's sphere-in-hole model for binary alloys. By surveying the dependence of the elastic energy on chemical composition and lattice misfit, we…
The kinetics of dislocation reactions, such as dislocation multiplication, controls the plastic deformation in crystals beyond their elastic limit, therefore critical mechanisms in a number of applications in materials science. We present a…