Paper Number
BA11 

Session
Biological and Active Matters

Title
Scaling theory for athermal fiber networks

Presentation Date and Time
October 15, 2018 (Monday) 4:10

Track / Room
Track 6 / Tanglewood

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

1. Shivers, Jordan (Rice University, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
2. Arzash, Sadjad (Rice University, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
3. Sharma, Abhinav (Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research)
4. MacKintosh, Fred C. (Rice University, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Jordan Shivers¹, Sadjad Arzash¹, Abhinav Sharma², and Fred C. MacKintosh^1
1Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005; ²Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research, Dresden 01069, Germany

Speaker / Presenter 
Shivers, Jordan

Text of Abstract
Networks of interconnected semiflexible fibers, such as the cell cytoskeleton and extracellular matrix in living tissues, provide structural integrity and mechanical tunability to many natural materials. Whether the mechanical response of these networks is dominated by soft bending modes or stiff stretching modes can be controlled by two variables: the coordination number and the applied strain. Near the transition between soft and rigid, such networks exhibit signatures of criticality in the strain- and connectivity-dependence of the stress tensor, elastic moduli and nonaffine rearrangements. We develop a scaling theory describing the rigidity transition for athermal fiber networks and determine relations between the various critical exponents, which we support with simulations of lattice-based and off-lattice fiber networks.