相关论文: Viscoelasticity of reversibly crosslinked networks…

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…

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…

Networks of filamentous proteins play a crucial role in cell mechanics. These cytoskeletal networks, together with various crosslinking and other associated proteins largely determine the (visco)elastic response of cells. In this letter we…

We suggest a simple model for reversible cross-links, binding and unbinding to/from a network of semiflexible polymers. The resulting frequency dependent response of the network to an applied shear is calculated via Brownian dynamics…

While polymer solutions lack the mechanical stability only transiently cross-linked networks can fulfill the competing requirements of structural stability and maximal energy dissipation. Here, we show that transient cross-links entail…

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,…

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,…

Stretching an elastic material along one axis typically induces contraction along the transverse axes, a phenomenon known as the Poisson effect. From these strains, one can compute the specific volume, which generally either increases or,…

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…

The non-linear stress-strain relation for crosslinked polymer networks is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. Previously we demonstrated the importance of trapped entanglements in determining the elastic and relaxational…

Here, we provide an overview of theoretical approaches to semiflexible polymers and their networks. Such semiflexible polymers have large bending rigidities that can compete with the entropic tendency of a chain to crumple up into a random…

Previous research on semiflexible polymers including cytoskeletal networks in cells has suggested the existence of distinct regimes of elastic response, in which the strain field is either uniform (affine) or non-uniform (non-affine) under…

Experiments have shown that elasticity of disordered filamentous networks with compliant crosslinks is very different from networks with rigid crosslinks. Here, we model and analyze filamentous networks as a collection of randomly oriented…

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)…

The cytoskeleton is an inhomogeneous network of semi-flexible filaments, which are involved in a wide variety of active biological processes. Although the cytoskeletal filaments can be very stiff and embedded in a dense and cross-linked…

Motivated by recent experiments showing that stiff biopolymer gels exhibit highly unusual negative normal elastic stresses, we develop a computational model for stiff polymer networks subject to large strains. In all cases, we find that…

Networks and dense suspensions frequently reside near a boundary between soft (or fluid-like) and rigid (or solid-like) regimes. Transitions between these regimes can be driven by changes in structure, density, or applied stress or strain.…

We investigate wrinkling of two-dimensional random and triangular semiflexible polymer networks under shear. Both types of semiflexible networks exhibit wrinkling above a small critical shear angle, which scales with an exponent of the…

We investigate theoretically the effect of polymer tension on the collective behavior of reversibly binding cross-links. For this purpose, we employ a model of two weakly bending wormlike chains aligned in parallel by a tensile force, with…

We develop a model for gels and entangled solutions of semiflexible biopolymers such as F-actin. Such networks play a crucial structural role in the cytoskeleton of cells. We show that the rheologic properties of these networks can result…