Linear poroelastic response of thin permeable gel films
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866910177316306944 |
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| author | Kopecz-Muller, Caroline Mcgraw, Joshua D Salez, Thomas |
| author_facet | Kopecz-Muller, Caroline Mcgraw, Joshua D Salez, Thomas |
| contents | When a hydrophilic and deformable porous material is immersed in a bath, it may absorb the solvent and expand by several times its volume, thus forming a highly soft and porous hydrogel. A stress applied on the soft hydrogel surface deforms it and forces the absorbed solvent to move by flowing through the network of pores. This coupled phenomenon sets the framework of poroelasticity. Moreover, polymeric gels are often used in ultra-thin coatings to tune surface properties. Together with the characteristic poroelastic coupling, this thinness challenges the modelling of their response. In this article, we derive the point-force mechanical response of a thin, permeable and poroelastic layer bounded to a rigid substrate. We show that the gel surface is only deformed around the indentation point, within a radius on the order of the layer thickness. The obtained Green's function can be directly used to predict the space- and time-dependent surface deformation of the gel. Our findings are relevant for a broad range of applications, such as indentation experiments on swollen gels, thin membranes or soft and living systems, as well as lubrication problems involving a soft and porous wall, for instance in microfluidics. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_26464 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Linear poroelastic response of thin permeable gel films Kopecz-Muller, Caroline Mcgraw, Joshua D Salez, Thomas Soft Condensed Matter Classical Physics Fluid Dynamics When a hydrophilic and deformable porous material is immersed in a bath, it may absorb the solvent and expand by several times its volume, thus forming a highly soft and porous hydrogel. A stress applied on the soft hydrogel surface deforms it and forces the absorbed solvent to move by flowing through the network of pores. This coupled phenomenon sets the framework of poroelasticity. Moreover, polymeric gels are often used in ultra-thin coatings to tune surface properties. Together with the characteristic poroelastic coupling, this thinness challenges the modelling of their response. In this article, we derive the point-force mechanical response of a thin, permeable and poroelastic layer bounded to a rigid substrate. We show that the gel surface is only deformed around the indentation point, within a radius on the order of the layer thickness. The obtained Green's function can be directly used to predict the space- and time-dependent surface deformation of the gel. Our findings are relevant for a broad range of applications, such as indentation experiments on swollen gels, thin membranes or soft and living systems, as well as lubrication problems involving a soft and porous wall, for instance in microfluidics. |
| title | Linear poroelastic response of thin permeable gel films |
| topic | Soft Condensed Matter Classical Physics Fluid Dynamics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.26464 |