Related papers: Contraction response of a polyelectrolyte hydrogel…
This paper focuses on the homogenization of high-contrast dielectric elastomer composites, materials that deform in response to electrical stimulation. The considered heterogeneous material consisting of an ambient material with inserted…
We investigate the reliability of simulations of polyelectrolyte systems in aqueous environments, simulations that are performed using an efficient multi scale coarse grained polarizable pseudo-particle particle approach, denoted as pppl,…
Theoretical and experimental studies have revealed that electrons in condensed matter can behave hydrodynamically, exhibiting fluid phenomena such as Stokes flow and vortices. Unlike classical fluids, preferred directions inside crystals…
In this paper, the analysis and homogenization of a poroelastic model for the hydro-mechanical response of fibre-reinforced hydrogels is considered. Here, the medium in question is considered to be a highly heterogeneous two-component media…
Many biological and engineering materials have nonperiodic microstructures for which classical periodic homogenization results do not apply. Certain nonperiodic microstructures may be approximated by locally periodic microstructures for…
We simulate the electrical response of multiple disjoint biological 3D cells undergoing an electropermeabilization process. Instead of solving the boundary value problem in the unbounded volume, we reduce it to a system of boundary…
We recast the problem of hydrogel swelling under physical constraints as an energy optimization problem. We apply this approach to compute equilibrium shapes of hydrogel spheres confined within a jammed matrix of rigid beads, and interpret…
We investigate theoretically the phase diagram of an insoluble charged surfactant monolayer in contact with a semi-dilute polyelectrolyte solution (of opposite charge). The polyelectrolytes are assumed to have long-range and attractive…
The role of electrostatics on the interfacial properties of polyelectrolyte microgels has been discussed controversially in the literature. It is not yet clear if, or how, Coulomb interactions affect their behavior under interfacial…
Ferrogels, i.e., hydrogels loaded with magnetic nanoparticles, have the ability to deform in external magnetic fields. The precise shape of deformation and the alignment of the gel in the field, however, depend on the interplay of several…
Hydrogels are biphasic, swollen polymer networks where elastic deformation is coupled to nanoscale fluid flow. As a consequence, hydrogels can withstand large strains and exhibit nonlinear, hyperelastic properties. For low-modulus hydrogel…
We study water between parallel metal walls under applied electric field accounting for the image effect at $T=298$ K. The electric field due to the surface charges serves to attract and orient nearby water molecules, while it tends to a…
We present the results from an extensive atomistic molecular dynamics simulation study of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) doped with various amounts of lithium-bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonimide (LiTFSI) salt under the influence of external…
In the study of colloidal, biological and electrochemical systems, it is customary to treat surfaces, macromolecules and electrodes as homogeneously charged. This simplified approach is proven successful in most cases, but fails to describe…
Cytoskeletal gels are prototyped to reproduce the mechanical contraction of the cytoskeleton in-vitro. They are composed of a polymer network (backbone), swollen by the presence of a liquid solvent, and active molecules (molecular motors,…
Electron and proton acceleration in three-dimensional electric and magnetic fields is studied through test particle simulations. The fields are obtained by a three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulation of magnetic reconnection in slab…
Thermo-responsive hydrogels are smart materials that rapidly switch between hydrophilic (swollen) and hydrophobic (shrunken) states when heated past a threshold temperature, resulting in order-of-magnitude changes in gel volume. Modelling…
Applying electric fields is an attractive way to control and manipulate single particles or molecules, e.g., in lab-on-a-chip devices. However, the response of nanosize objects in electrolyte solution to external fields is far from trivial.…
From pasta to biological tissues to contact lenses, gel and gel-like materials inherently soften as they swell with water. In dry, low-relative-humidity environments, these materials stiffen as they de-swell with water. Here, we use…
Two of the most challenging tasks in molecular simulation consist in capturing the properties of systems with long-range interactions (e.g. electrolyte solutions) as well as systems containing large molecules such as hydrogels. For the…