Hyperelastic swelling of stiff hydrogels

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Wang, Jing, Burton, Justin C.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Wang, Jing
Burton, Justin C.
author_facet Wang, Jing
Burton, Justin C.
contents Hydrogels are biphasic, swollen polymer networks where elastic deformation is coupled to nanoscale fluid flow. As a consequence, hydrogels can withstand large strains and exhibit nonlinear, hyperelastic properties. For low-modulus hydrogel and semiflexible biopolymer networks, previous studies have shown that these materials universally contract when sheared on timescales much longer than the poroelastic relaxation timescale. Using rheological and tribological measurements, we find that stiff polyacrylamide and polyacrylic acid hydrogels, with moduli of order ~10-100 kPa, exclusively swell (dilate) when sheared. The poroelastic relaxation process was examined using strain-controlled compression, indicating a volumetric diffusion constant of order 10^-9 m^2/s. Upon shearing, we observed an increase in normal stress that varied quadratically with shear strain, and persisted for hours. Moreover, we show that this dilatant behavior manifests as swelling during tribological sliding, imbibing the hydrogel with fluid. We suggest that this inherent, hyperelastic dilatancy is an important feature in all stiff hydrogels, and may explain rehydration and mechanical rejuvenation in biological tissues such as cartilage.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_04251
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Hyperelastic swelling of stiff hydrogels
Wang, Jing
Burton, Justin C.
Soft Condensed Matter
Applied Physics
Hydrogels are biphasic, swollen polymer networks where elastic deformation is coupled to nanoscale fluid flow. As a consequence, hydrogels can withstand large strains and exhibit nonlinear, hyperelastic properties. For low-modulus hydrogel and semiflexible biopolymer networks, previous studies have shown that these materials universally contract when sheared on timescales much longer than the poroelastic relaxation timescale. Using rheological and tribological measurements, we find that stiff polyacrylamide and polyacrylic acid hydrogels, with moduli of order ~10-100 kPa, exclusively swell (dilate) when sheared. The poroelastic relaxation process was examined using strain-controlled compression, indicating a volumetric diffusion constant of order 10^-9 m^2/s. Upon shearing, we observed an increase in normal stress that varied quadratically with shear strain, and persisted for hours. Moreover, we show that this dilatant behavior manifests as swelling during tribological sliding, imbibing the hydrogel with fluid. We suggest that this inherent, hyperelastic dilatancy is an important feature in all stiff hydrogels, and may explain rehydration and mechanical rejuvenation in biological tissues such as cartilage.
title Hyperelastic swelling of stiff hydrogels
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Applied Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.04251