Related papers: A statistical theory for polymer elasticity: from …
This study presents a Eulerian theory to elucidate the molecular kinematics in polymer networks and their connection to continuum deformation, grounded in fundamental statistical physics and thermodynamics. Three key innovations are…
The Hamiltonian dynamics of chains of nonlinearly coupled particles is numerically investigated in two and three dimensions. Simple, off-lattice homopolymer models are used to represent the interparticle potentials. Time averages of…
A polymer-chain network is a collection of interconnected polymer-chains, made themselves of the repetition of a single pattern called a monomer. Our first main result establishes that, for a class of models for polymer-chain networks, the…
A fundamental theory is presented for the mechanical response of polymer networks undergoing large deformation which seamlessly integrates statistical mechanical principles with macroscopic thermodynamic constitutive theory. Our formulation…
Constitutive modeling of dielectric elastomers has been of long standing interest in mechanics. Over the last two decades rigorous constitutive models have been developed that couple the electrical response of these polymers with large…
Elastomers are used in a wide range of applications because of their large strain to failure, low density, and tailorable stiffness and toughness. The mechanical behavior of elastomers derives mainly from the entropic elasticity of the…
Statistical mechanics is an important tool for understanding polymer electroelasticity because the elasticity of polymers is primarily due to entropy. However, a common approach for the statistical mechanics of polymer chains, the Gaussian…
This work introduces a methodology for the statistical mechanical analysis of polymeric chains under tension controlled by optical or magnetic tweezers at thermal equilibrium with an embedding fluid medium. The response of single bonds…
Using molecular dynamics simulations we examine the dynamics of a family of model polymers with varying chain length and torsional potential barriers. We focus on features of the dynamics of polymers that are seen experimentally but absent…
The mechanics of single-chain stretching and rupture are central to understanding the resilience of biological polymers and designing strong and tough soft materials such as double-network gels and multi-network elastomers. In this work, we…
Linear polymers are represented as chains of hopping reptons and their motion is described as a stochastic process on a lattice. This admittedly crude approximation still catches essential physics of polymer motion, i.e. the universal…
The stretching of a polymer chain by a large scale chaotic flow is considered. The steady state which emerges as a balance of the turbulent stretching and anharmonic resistance of the chain is quantitatively described, i.e. the dependency…
This study focuses on comparing the individual polymer chain dynamics in an entangled polymeric liquid under different shear and extension rates. Polymer chains under various shear rates and extension rates were simulated using a…
Polymeric materials that couple deformation and electrostatics have the potential for use in soft sensors and actuators with potential applications ranging from robotic, biomedical, energy, aerospace and automotive technologies. In contrast…
We present an analytical theory for heteropolymer deformation, as exemplified experimentally by stretching of single protein molecules. Using a mean-field replica theory, we determine phase diagrams for stress-induced unfolding of typical…
We study a blend of two kinds of homopolymers with tendency for segragation. Cross-links between the chains of different kinds do not allow macrophase separation. Instead microphase structure appears. Starting from a microscopic model we…
We introduce an entropic network model for copolymer elastomers based on the evolution of microscopic chain conformations during deformation. We show that the stress results from additive contributions due to chain stretch at the global as…
For monodomain nematic elastomers, we construct generalised elastic-nematic constitutive models combining purely elastic and neoclassical-type strain-energy densities. Inspired by recent developments in stochastic elasticity, we extend…
Macroscopic mechanical properties of polymers are determined by their microscopic molecular chain distribution. Due to randomness of these molecular chains, probability theory has been used to find their micro-states and energy…
We revisit a model of semiflexible Gaussian chains proposed by Winkler \textit{et al}, solve the dynamics of the discrete description of the model and derive exact algebraic expressions for some of the most relevant dynamical observables,…