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Self-healing polymers crosslinked by solely reversible bonds are intrinsically weaker than common covalently crosslinked networks. Introducing covalent crosslinks into a reversible network would improve mechanical strength. It is…
The mechanical yield of dense granular materials is a fascinating rheological phenomenon, beyond which stress no longer increases with strain at a sufficiently large deformation. Understanding the behavior of mechanical responses associated…
Mechanical metamaterials are renowned for their ability to achieve high stiffness and strength at low densities, often at the expense of low ductility and stretchability-a persistent trade-off in materials. In contrast, materials such as…
Motivated by the structure of networks of cross-linked cytoskeletal biopolymers, we study the orientationally ordered phases in two-dimensional networks of randomly cross-linked semiflexible polymers. We consider permanent cross-links which…
A long standing puzzle in the rheology of living cells is the origin of the experimentally observed long time stress relaxation. The mechanics of the cell is largely dictated by the cytoskeleton, which is a biopolymer network consisting of…
When sheared, most elastic solids such as metals, rubbers and polymer hydrogels dilate in the direction perpendicular to the shear plane. This well-known behaviour known as the Poynting effect is characterized by a positive normal stress.…
Recent advances have shown that introducing dependency interactions between two superconducting networks can trigger abrupt, hysteretic normal-superconductor phase transitions. In this study, we demonstrate that such behavior can also arise…
The influence of structural constraints on the relaxation dynamics of three polyurea networks with varying degree of crosslinking, has been studied by means of a thorough analysis of broadband dielectric spectroscopy measurements. Two…
We study the mechanical and conformational properties of networks of helical polymers with a combination of Monte Carlo simulations based on the Wang-Landau algorithm and the Three-chain Model. We find that the stress-strain behavior of…
Multiple polymer networks, such as double-network elastomers comprising a sacrificial and a matrix network, exhibit exceptional mechanical resilience, commonly attributed to the formation of an extended damage zone before a crack can grow.…
Concentrated colloidal suspensions and emulsions are amorphous soft solids, widespread in technological and industrial applications and studied as model systems in physics and material sciences. They are easily fluidized by applying a…
Usually, the strain-induced softening behaviour observed in the differential modulus $K(T,\gamma)$ of hydrogels has been attributed to the breakage of internal structures of the network, such as the cross-links that bind together the…
We investigate the dynamics of alginate gels, an important class of biopolymer-based viscoelastic materials, by combining mechanical tests and non-conventional, time-resolved light scattering methods. Two relaxation modes are observed upon…
The contact of a hydrogel during the rotational shearing on glass surface in concentrated polymer solution was observed in situ. Dynamic contact patterns that rotate in-phase with the rotational shearing of the gel were observed for the…
In this letter, we demonstrate that oscillations and excitable behavior can be imparted to a chemical network by coupling the network to an active hydrogel. We discuss two mechanisms by which the mechanical response of the gel to the…
Ferrogels, i.e. swollen polymer networks into which magnetic particles are immersed, can be considered as "smart materials" since their shape and elasticity can be controlled by an external magnetic field. Using molecular dynamics…
The dynamical properties and mechanical functions of amorphous materials are governed by their microscopic structures, particularly the elasticity of the interaction networks, which is generally complicated by structural heterogeneity. This…
The stress response of polymer double networks depends not only on the properties of the constituent networks, but also on the interactions arising between them. Here we demonstrate, via coarse-grained simulations, that both their global…
Since their discovery in 2011, vitrimers - covalent associative network polymers - have challenged the traditional understanding of soft matter relaxation dynamics: unlike in typical glass-forming liquids, vitrimers' viscous relaxation can…
We investigate the heterogeneous dynamics in a model, where chemical gelation and glass transition interplay, focusing on the dynamical susceptibility. Two independent mechanisms give raise to the correlations, which are manifested in the…