Related papers: Poromechanical modelling of responsive hydrogel pu…
Water evaporation is critically important for hydrogels in open-air applications, but theoretically modeling is difficult due to the complicated intermolecular interactions and sustained deformation. In this work, we construct a simplified…
Superhydrophobic surfaces play an important role in the development of new product coatings such as cars, but also in mechanical engineering, especially design of turbines and compressors. Thus a vital part of the design of these surfaces…
Stimuli-responsive materials that modify their shape in response to changes in environmental conditions -- such as solute concentration, temperature, pH, and stress -- are widespread in nature and technology. Applications include micro- and…
Heteropolymer gels can be engineered to release specific molecules into or absorb molecules from a surrounding solution. This remarkable ability is the basis for developing gel applications in extensive areas such as drug delivery, waste…
While deeply supercooled liquids exhibit divergent viscosity and increasingly heterogeneous dynamics as the temperature drops, their structure shows only seemingly marginal changes. Understanding the nature of relaxation processes in this…
Precisely measuring pressure in microfluidic flows is essential for flow control, fluid characterization, and monitoring, but faces specific challenges such as \RE{achieving} sufficient resolution, non-invasiveness, or ease of use. Here, we…
Stimuli-responsive lyogels are considered to be smart materials due to their capability of undergoing significant macroscopic changes in response to external triggers. Due to their versatile and unique properties, smart lyogels exhibit…
Unstructured proteins can modulate cellular responses to environmental conditions by undergoing coil-globule transitions and phase separation. However, the molecular mechanisms of these phenomena still need to be fully understood. Here, we…
As the interface between human and machine becomes blurred, hydrogel incorporated electronics and devices have emerged to be a new class of flexible/stretchable electronic and ionic devices due to their extraordinary properties, such as…
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…
We consider the dynamics of micro-sized, asymmetrically-coated thermoresponsive hydrogel ribbons (microgels) under periodic heating and cooling in the confined space between two planar surfaces. As the result of the temperature changes, the…
We investigate the swelling dynamics driven by solvent absorption in a hydrogel sphere immersed in a solvent bath, through an accurate computational model and numerical study. We extensively describe the transient process from dry to wet…
Recent work has demonstrated the strong qualitative differences between the dynamics near a glass transition driven by short-ranged repulsion and one governed by short-ranged attraction. Here, we study in detail the behavior of non-linear,…
Microrobots show great potential in biomedical applications such as drug delivery and cell manipulations. However, current microrobots are mostly fabricated as a single entity and type and the tasks they can perform are limited. In this…
Intelligent metamaterials have attracted widespread research interest due to their self-adaptive capabilities and controllability. They hold great potential for advancing fluid control by providing responsive and flexible solutions.…
The transport properties of an ionic model for liquid silica at high temperatures and pressure are investigated using molecular dynamics simulations. With increasing pressure, a clear change from "strong" to "fragile" behaviour (according…
Self-oscillating gels are chemically-responsive hydrogels coupled to an oscillating chemical reaction of a stimulus solute. In response to the oscillating solute concentration field, responsive gels periodically swell and deswell, expelling…
We study volume transition phenomenon in hydrogels within the framework of Flory-Rehner thermodynamic modelling; we show that starting from different models for the Flory parameter different conclusions can be achieved, in terms of…
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…
Endowing materials with physical intelligence holds the key for a progress leap in robotic systems. In spite of the growing success for macroscopic devices, transferring these concepts to the microscale presents several challenges connected…