noyco's blog

Check out our new work at Advanced Materials Technologies

Simuli-responsive hydrogels that swell under constraints such as spatial geometric confinement are commonly employed in many applications to perform mechanical work. In this contribution, we present a simple 3D-printing based method to quantify the mechanical interactions between the gels and their environment. Our findings underscore the potential of gels in the design of actuators, sensors, biomedical devices, etc…

Spider silk is an incredible material!
Check out our new paper at Physical Review Letters:

Stimulus activated structures that deform from a reference to target configurations are used in various fields such as soft robotics, smart materials, and actuators.  In this work we introduce a framework that captures the non-linear response of multi-layer polymeric beams subjected to thermo-mechanical loading. We show that the exploitation of the glass transition temperature can lead to a wide variety of interesting responses. Our findings provide guideline for an efficient design of shape-morphing structures capable of polymorphism.

Check out our paper at IJMS:

The submersion of a polymer network with a high density of hydrogen bond based cross-links in an aqueous bath results in the formation of a rubber-like hydrogel. The cross-links, which connect chains and maintain the structure of the network, can dissociate as a result of two main factors: (1) the interactions between the hydrogen bonds and the surrounding water molecules and (2) the forces that are exerted on the cross-link from the interconnected chains.

Dear colleagues,

We would like to invite you to attend mini-symposium 327: Mechanics of Polymeric Gels. The 19th U.S. National Congress on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics will be held in Austin, Texas, June 19–24, 2022 (www.usnctam2022.org/).

Our symposium welcomes experimental, theoretical, and computational talks that discuss mechanics of polymeric gels (see https://www.usnctam2022.org/MS_327 )

Please note that the deadline for abstracts is December 18, 2022.

How can we induce twist in tubular structures without applying a torque?

In nature, such behavior is enabled by material anisotropy. In our new work, we show that isotropic bi-layer tubes with twist incompatible layers can twist upon inflation and extension.
Interestingly, the direction of twist can spontaneously reverse as the load increases!

Check out our new paper at EML:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352431621000766

Spider silk is a protein material that exhibits extraordinary and nontrivial properties such as the ability to soften and decrease its length by up to ∼60% upon exposure to high humidity. This counter-intuitive process is commonly called supercontraction and is the result of a transition from a highly oriented glassy phase to a disoriented rubbery phase. In our new paper (published in biomacromolecules) we derive a model that explains the origins of the supercontraction phenomena. The insights from this work motivate the development of novel biomimetic materials.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsbiomaterials.9b01983

Beta-sheet protein structures and domains are widely found in biological materials such as silk. These assemblies play amajor role in the extraordinary strength and unique properties of biomaterials.  In our new work, we employ simple Langevin-based models to investigate the behavior and the collapse of these structures.