Paper Number
PG6 

Session
Polyelectrolytes, Self-assembling Systems & Gels

Title
The role of network topology in soft gels

Presentation Date and Time
October 16, 2018 (Tuesday) 4:10

Track / Room
Track 3 / Bellaire

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

1. Bantawa, Minaspi (Georgetown University)
2. Bouzid, Mehdi (Universite Paris Sud, LPTMS)
3. Del Gado, Emanuela (Georgetown University)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Minaspi Bantawa¹, Mehdi Bouzid², and Emanuela Del Gado^1
1Georgetown University, Washington, DC; ²LPTMS, Universite Paris Sud, Paris, France

Speaker / Presenter 
Bantawa, Minaspi

Text of Abstract
Soft gels formed by the self-assembly of systems like colloids, proteins and polymers into poorly connected networks are ubiquitous in nature. Despite their importance in a wide range of industrial applications with tunable mechanical properties, the fundamental understanding of how the microstructure determines the mechanical response is still not sufficient. Here we investigate the role of network topology and of frozen-in stresses in a model gel through 3-D simulations. Our study links the topology of the network organization in space to the stress redistribution under shear and to the characteristics of its linear viscoelastic spectrum. Furthermore, for a fixed topology, we investigate the role of pre-stresses and of the bending stiffness of the gel fibers in the nonlinear response, the damage and the brittleness of the networks.