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Single-chain elasticity is of fundamental importance in polymer physics, as it underlies many of the unique properties of polymer systems. Recently, there has been interest in characterizing the elastic properties of catenanes, molecular…
Single-filament tracing has been a valuable tool to directly determine geometrical and mechanical properties of entangled polymer networks. However, systematically verifying how the stiffness of the tracer filament or its molecular…
Forced detachment of a single polymer chain, strongly-adsorbed on a solid substrate, is investigated by two complementary methods: a coarse-grained analytical dynamical model, based on the Onsager stochastic equation, and Molecular Dynamics…
Polymer networks formed by cross linking flexible polymer chains are ubiquitous in many natural and synthetic soft-matter systems. Current micromechanics models generally do not account for excluded volume interactions except, for instance,…
Simulations are used to examine the microscopic origins of strain hardening in polymer glasses. While traditional entropic network models can be fit to the total stress, their underlying assumptions are inconsistent with simulation results.…
Taking into account the nonequivalence of fixed-force and fixed-length ensembles in the weak-force regime, equations of state are derived that describe the equilibrium extension or compression of an ideal Gaussian polymer chain in response…
The paper presents a short overview of the theoretical, numerical and experimental works on the critical behavior of a dilute polymer solution of long-flexible polymer chains confined in semi-infinite space restricted by a surface or in a…
We study the elasticity of random stiff fiber networks. The elastic response of the fibers is characterized by a central force stretching stiffness as well as a bending stiffness that acts transverse to the fiber contour. Previous studies…
We carry out uniaxial continuous and step stretching of various crosslinked polymer networks to demonstrate how characteristics of rupture (from continuous stretching) and delayed rupture (from step stretching) can be used to probe the…
Filamentous polymer networks govern the mechanical properties of many biological materials. Force distributions within these networks are typically highly inhomogeneous and, although the importance of force distributions for structural…
An expression is derived for the strain energy of a polymer chain under an arbitrary three-dimensional deformation with finite strains. For a Gaussian chain, this expression is reduced to the conventional Moony--Rivlin constitutive law,…
Highly stretchable and self-healable supramolecular elastomers are promising materials for future soft electronics, biomimetic systems, and smart textiles, due to their dynamic cross-linking bonds. The dynamic or reversible nature of the…
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.…
Link failures in supply networks can have catastrophic consequences that can lead to a complete collapse of the network. Strategies to prevent failure spreading are thus heavily sought after. Here, we make use of a spanning tree formulation…
We explore the transport features of a single flexible polymer chain that walks on a periodic ratchet potential coupled with spatially varying temperature. At steady state the polymer exhibits a fast unidirectional motion where the…
We study a material modeled as a network of nodes connected by edges. Using a discrete approach, we build a nonlinear algebraic system that connects applied forces to internal forces and node positions. The model can describe elasticity,…
This paper presents a macroscopic theory, alongside its numerical implementation, aimed at describing, explaining, and predicting the nucleation and propagation of fracture in viscoelastic materials subjected to quasistatic loading…
Analytical and numerical calculations are presented for the mechanical response of fiber networks in a state of axisymmetric prestress, in the limit where geometric non-linearities such as fiber rotation are negligible. This allows us 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,…
Evaluating accessible conformational space is computationally expensive and thermal motions are partly neglected in computer models of molecular interactions. This produces error into the estimates of binding strength. We introduce a method…