Articles

Tuning mechanical behaviors of highly entangled hydrogels with the random distribution of mobile entanglements

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  • 1Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
    2Beijing System Design Institute of Electro-Mechanic Engineering, Beijing 100854, China
    3Intelligent Robotic Research Center, Zhejiang Laboratory, Hangzhou 310027, China
    4Key Laboratory of Soft Machines and Smart Devices of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou 311100, China
Bin CHEN, E-mail: chenb6@zju.edu.cn

Received date: 2023-11-03

  Online published: 2024-01-27

Supported by

the Key Research Project of Zhejiang Laboratory(K2022NB0AC03);the National Natural Science Foundation of China(11872334);the National Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province of China(LZ23A020004);Project supported by the Key Research Project of Zhejiang Laboratory (No. K2022NB0AC03), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11872334), and the National Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province of China (No. LZ23A020004)

Copyright

Editorial Department of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics (English Edition), 2024,

Abstract

Highly entangled hydrogels exhibit excellent mechanical properties, including high toughness, high stretchability, and low hysteresis. By considering the evolution of randomly distributed entanglements within the polymer network upon mechanical stretches, we develop a constitutive theory to describe the large stretch behaviors of these hydrogels. In the theory, we utilize a representative volume element (RVE) in the shape of a cube, within which there exists an averaged chain segment along each edge and a mobile entanglement at each corner. By employing an explicit method, we decouple the elasticity of the hydrogels from the sliding motion of their entanglements, and derive the stress-stretch relations for these hydrogels. The present theoretical analysis is in agreement with experiment, and highlights the significant influence of the entanglement distribution within the hydrogels on their elasticity. We also implement the present developed constitutive theory into a commercial finite element software, and the subsequent simulations demonstrate that the exact distribution of entanglements strongly affects the mechanical behaviors of the structures of these hydrogels. Overall, the present theory provides valuable insights into the deformation mechanism of highly entangled hydrogels, and can aid in the design of these hydrogels with enhanced performance.

Cite this article

Jinlong LIU, Di LU, Bin CHEN . Tuning mechanical behaviors of highly entangled hydrogels with the random distribution of mobile entanglements[J]. Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, 2024 , 45(2) : 277 -294 . DOI: 10.1007/s10483-024-3076-8

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