相关论文: Why is the strength of an elastomeric polymer netw…
Self-mated hydrogel contacts show extremely small friction coefficients at low loads but a distinct velocity dependence. Here we combine mesoscopic simulations and experiments to test the polymer-relaxation hypothesis for this velocity…
While most chemical bonds weaken under the action of mechanical force (called slip bond behavior), nature has developed bonds that do the opposite: their lifetime increases as force is applied. While such catch bonds have been studied quite…
Protein molecules often self-assemble by means of non-covalent physical bonds to form extended filaments, such as amyloids, F-actin, intermediate filaments, and many others. The kinetics of filament growth is limited by the disassembly…
We report that a dielectric polymer chain, constrained at both ends, sharply collapses when exposed to a high electric field. The chain collapse is driven by nonlocal dipolar interactions and anisotropic polarization of monomers, a…
The influence of structural constraints on the relaxation dynamics of three polyurea networks with varying degree of crosslinking, has been studied by means of a thorough analysis of broadband dielectric spectroscopy measurements. Two…
We discuss the threshold activated extremal dynamics that is prevalent in the breakdown processes in heterogeneous materials. We model such systems by an elastic spring network with random breaking thresholds assigned to the springs.…
The influence of node functionality (f) on the fracture of polymer networks remains unclear. While many studies have focused on multi-functional nodes with f>4, recent research suggests that networks with f=3 exhibit superior fracture…
Against common sense, auxetic materials expand or contract perpendicularly when stretched or compressed, respectively, by uniaxial strain, being characterized by a negative Poisson's ratio $\nu$. The amount of deformation in response to the…
Soft living tissues like cartilage can be considered as biphasic materials comprised of a fibrous complex biopolymer network and a viscous background liquid. Here, we show by a combination of experiment and theoretical analysis that both…
Phase separation within polymer networks plays a central role in shaping the structure and mechanics of both synthetic materials and living cells, including the formation of biomolecular condensates within cytoskeletal networks. Previous…
It is widely known that hydrogels, a class of soft materials made of a polymer chain network, are prone to fatigue failure. To understand the underlying mechanism, here we simulate polymer scission and fatigue initiation in the vicinity of…
Entangled networks are ubiquitous in tissues, polymers, and fabrics. However, their mechanics remain insufficiently understood due to the complexity of the topological constraints at the network level. Here, we develop a mathematical…
In systems characterized by a rough potential energy landscape, local energetic minima and saddles define a network of metastable states whose topology strongly influences the dynamics. Changes in temperature, causing the merging and…
Fujiyabu et al. have experimentally reported that mixing of 3-arm star prepolymers into 4-arm analog improves the toughness of the resultant polymer networks compared to the base network composed of 4-arm star polymers only. For the…
In this paper, a micro-mechanical model is introduce to characterize the stress softening phenomenon in double network hydrogels. Damage in polymer matrices under deformation, which appears as the rupture of cross-linking, is assumed to…
The mechanical properties of polymer knots under stretching in a bad or good solvent are investigated by applying a given force $F$ to a point of the knot while keeping another point fixed. The Monte Carlo sampling of the polymer…
Solutions of semiflexible polymers confined by repulsive planar walls are studied by density functional theory and Molecular Dynamics simulations, to clarify the competition between the chain alignment favored by the wall and the depletion…
The interplay of topological constraints and Coulomb interactions in static and dynamic properties of charged polymers is investigated by numerical simulations and scaling arguments. In the absence of screening, the long-range interaction…
This study investigated, experimentally and numerically, the fracturing behavior of thermoset polymer structures featuring cracks and sharp u-notches. It is shown that, even for cases in which the sharpness of the notch would suggest…
Based on non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of entangled polymer melts, a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. $\textbf{121}$, 047801 (2018), arXiv:1806.09509] claims that the rising extensional stress is quantitatively consistent…