Experiments in quasi-two-dimensional geometry (Hele-Shaw cells) in which a fluid is injected into a viscoelastic medium (foam, clay, or associating polymers) show patterns akin to fracture in brittle materials, very different from standard Laplacian growth patterns of viscous fingering. An analytic theory is lacking since a prerequisite to describing the fracture of elastic material is the solu...

Electrically conductive polymer composites filled with carbon black can exhibit the mechanical behavior of a polymer and metallic electrical conductivity. Unfortunately, excessive amounts of carbon black can produce brittle films and too little carbon black can result in low conductivity. Composite conductivity can be dramatically improved by using latex as the matrix starting material. Latex p...

Anand & Gurtin (2002) have recently developed a continuum theory for the elasticviscoplastic deformation of amorphous solids. Their theory is motivated by and builds on the work of Parks, Argon, Boyce, Arruda, and their co-workers (e.g. Boyce et al., 1988; Arruda & Boyce, 1993) on modeling the plastic deformation of amorphous polymers. The theory of Anand & Gurtin (2002) carefully accounts for ...

background and objectives: kefiran (kef) is a water-soluble polysaccharide that can form transparent film however, it is brittle. therefore, in order to improve the mechanical properties of kefiran film, a mixture with other polymers can be offered. the expansion of mixed systems can propose kefiran and polyvinyl alcohol (pvoh) as a new composite film. materials and methods: solutions of 20 gra...

We show that materials with a diverse range of mechanical and biological properties can be obtained using a modular approach by simply mixing different ratios of oligocaprolactones that are either end-functionalized or chain-extended with quadruple hydrogen bonding ureido-pyrimidinone (UPy) moieties. The use of two UPy-synthons allows for easy synthesis of UPy-modified polymers resulting in hig...

Background and Objectives: Kefiran (Kef) is a water-soluble polysaccharide that can form transparent film however, it is brittle. Therefore, in order to improve the mechanical properties of kefiran film, a mixture with other polymers can be offered. The expansion of mixed systems can propose kefiran and polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) as a new composite film. Materials and Methods: Solutions of 20 gr...

Deformation brings out important features of viscoelastic behaviour in polymers. To achieve a better understanding of the underlying phenomena, molecular dynamics simulations have been performed for oneand two-phase polymeric materials created on the computer. An external force was applied to the materials and their response followed as a function of time. The mechanical properties were found t...