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Disordered networks of semiflexible filaments are common support structures in biology. Familiar examples include fibrous matrices in blood clots, bacterial biofilms, and essential components of cells and tissues of plants, animals, and…
We present theoretical and experimental studies of the elastic response of fibrous networks subjected to uniaxial strain. Uniaxial compression or extension is applied to extracellular networks of fibrin and collagen using a shear rheometer…
Unlike hard materials such as metals and ceramics, rubbery materials can endure large deformations due to the large conformational degree of freedom of the crosslinked three-dimensional polymer network. However, the effect of the branching…
We show that non-entangled polymers display an elastic-like behaviour at a macroscopic scale (probed at some 0.100 mm thickness) up to at least hundred degrees above the glass transition temperature. This observation, found under…
Assemblies of purely repulsive and frictionless particles, such as emulsions or hard spheres, display very curious properties near their jamming transition, which occurs at the random close packing for mono-disperse spheres. Although such…
Materials with network-like microstructure, including polymers, are the backbone for many natural and human-made materials such as gels, biological tissues, metamaterials, and rubbers. Fracture processes in these networked materials are…
Fibrous networks are ideal functional materials since they provide mechanical rigidity at low weight. Such structures are omnipresent in natural biomaterials from cells to tissues, as well as in man-made materials from polymeric composites…
Nonlinear stiffening is a ubiquitous property of major types of biopolymers that make up the extracellular matrices (ECM) including collagen, fibrin and basement membrane. Within the ECM, many types of cells such as fibroblasts and cancer…
We demonstrate that the elasticity of jammed solids is nonlocal. By forcing frictionless soft sphere packings at varying wavelength, we directly access their transverse and longitudinal compliances without resorting to curve fitting. The…
We propose a class of microstructurally informed models for the linear elastic mechanical behavior of cross-linked polymer networks such as the actin cytoskeleton. Salient features of the models include the possibility to represent…
Amphiphiles self-assemble into a variety of bicontinuous mesophases whose equilibrium structures take the form of high-symmetry cubic networks. Here, we show that the symmetry-breaking distortions in these systems give rise to anomalously…
Unlike most synthetic materials, biological materials often stiffen as they are deformed. This nonlinear elastic response, critical for the physiological function of some tissues, has been documented since at least the 19th century, but the…
The effect of network chain distribution on the mechanical behavior of elastomers is one of the long-standing problems in rubber mechanics. The classical theory of rubber elasticity is built upon the assumption of entropic elasticity of…
The recent experiment [Science \textbf{321}, 385 (2008)] on the Young's modulus and third-order elastic stiffness of graphene are well explained in a very simple approach, where the graphene is described by a simplified system and the force…
This paper discusses the elastic behavior of polyelectrolyte networks. The deformation behavior of single polyelectrolyte chains is discussed. It is shown that a strong coupling between interactions and chain elasticity exists. The theory…
Live cells have ambiguous mechanical properties. They were often described as either elastic solids or viscoelastic fluids and have recently been classified as soft glassy materials characterized by weak power-law rheology. Nonlinear…
Collagen networks provide the main structural component of most tissues and represent an important ingredient for bio-mimetic materials for bio-medical applications. Here we study the mechanical properties of stiff collagen networks derived…
To assess the role of single-chain elasticity, non-affine strain fields and pre-stressed reference states we present and discuss the results of numerical and analytical analyses of modified 8-chain Arruda-Boyce model for cross-linked…
Due to their unique structural and mechanical properties, randomly-crosslinked polymer networks play an important role in many different fields, ranging from cellular biology to industrial processes. In order to elucidate how these…
We use nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations to verify recent tube-model predictions that associative polymer networks exhibit broad stretch fluctuations during elongational flow. Simulations further show that these fluctuating…