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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…
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 transport of solvent molecules through soft, swollen networks is critical in both natural and engineered systems. While this poroelastic flow has traditionally been explored in networks where the mesh size is comparable to the solvent…
Since the invention of polymer networks in the 19th century (e.g., crosslinked natural rubber by Goodyear), it has been a dogma that stiffer networks are less stretchable, a trade-off inherent to the molecular nature of polymer network…
Soft supramolecular materials are promising for the design of innovative and highly tunable adhesives. These materials are composed of polymer chains functionalized by strongly interacting moieties, sometimes called "stickers". In order to…
We model the mechanics of associating trivalent dendrimer network glasses with a focus on their energy dissipation properties. Various combinations of sticky bond (SB) strength and kinetics are employed. The toughness (work-to-fracture) of…
Here, the general design and properties of new multiple network elastomers with an exceptional combination of stiffness, toughness, and elasticity are reported. In this paper, it is reported in more detail how the increase in strain at…
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…
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,…
Reversible crosslinking is a design paradigm for polymeric materials, wherein they are microscopically reinforced with chemical species that form transient crosslinks between the polymer chains. Besides the potential for self-healing,…
Polymer gels are comprised of a three-dimensional, cross-linked network that can typically withstand the mechanical deformation associated with both swelling and de-swelling. Thus, gels can be designed with smart behaviors that require both…
Recent advances in active materials and fabrication techniques have enabled the production of cyclically self-deployable metamaterials with an expanded functionality space. However, designing metamaterials that possess continuously tunable…
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…
The development of wearable sensing systems for sports performance tracking, rehabilitation, and injury prevention has driven growing demand for smart garments that combine comfort, durability, and accurate motion detection. This paper…
We perform equilibrium Langevin dynamics simulations to understand the structure-viscoelasticity relationship of a dually crosslinked reversible polymer network. The cross-linking is achieved by introducing orthogonal crosslinkers (A and B)…
Recent experiments have demonstrated that the nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin is dramatically altered in the presence of a flexible cross-linker such as the abundant cytoskeletal protein filamin. The basic…
As interest in sustainable materials grows, paper is being reimagined as a multifunctional substrate with significant potential for future technologies for innovative, environmentally friendly solutions. This study investigates the swelling…
Pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) are soft polymeric materials that exhibit complex rheological and mechanical behavior gov- erned by the interplay between polymer architecture, crosslink density, and entanglement constraints. Predicting…
Double network hydrogels show remarkable mechanical performance, combining high strength and fracture toughness with sufficient stiffness to bear load, despite containing only a low density of cross-linked polymer molecules in water. We…
We study the mechanical stiffening behavior in two-dimensional (2D) cross-linked networks of semiflexible biopolymer filaments under simple shear. Filamental constituents immersed in a fluid undergo thermally excited bending motions.…