1,846 research outputs found
A transient network of telechelic polymers and microspheres : structure and rheology
We study the structure and dynamics of a transient network composed of
droplets of microemulsion connected by telechelic polymers. The polymer induces
a bridging attraction between droplets without changing their shape. A
viscoelastic behaviour is induced in the initially liquid solution,
characterised in the linear regime by a stretched exponential stress
relaxation. We analyse this relaxation in the light of classical theories of
transient networks. The role of the elastic reorganisations in the deformed
network is emphasized. In the non linear regime, a fast relaxation dynamics is
followed by a second one having the same rate as in the linear regime. This
behaviour, under step strain experiments, should induce a non monotonic
behaviour in the elastic component of the stress under constant shear rate.
However, we obtain in this case a singularity in the flow curve very different
from the one observed in other systems, that we interpret in terms of fracture
behaviour.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
Casimir forces in modulated systems
For the first time we present analytical results for the contribution of
electromagnetic fluctuations into thermodynamic properties of modulated
systems, like cholesteric or smectic liquid crystalline films. In the case of
small dielectric anisotropy we have derived explicit analytical expressions for
the chemical potential of such systems. Two limiting cases were specifically
considered: (i) the Van der Waals (VdW) limit, i.e., in the case when the
retardation of the electromagnetic interactions can be neglected; and (ii) the
Casimir limit, i.e. when the effects of retardation becomes considerable. It
was shown that in the Casimir limit, the film chemical potential oscillates
with the thickness of the film. This non-monotonic dependence of the chemical
potential on the film thickness can lead to step-wise wetting phenomena,
surface anchoring reorientation and other important effects. Applications of
the results may concern the various systems in soft matter or condensed matter
physics with multilayer or modulated structures.Comment: 13 page
Normothermic liver machine perfusion as a dynamic platform for regenerative purposes. What does the future have in store for us?
Liver transplantation has become an immense success; nevertheless, far more recipients are registered on waiting lists than there are available donor livers for transplantation. High-risk, extended criteria donor livers are increasingly used to reduce the discrepancy between organ demand and supply. Especially for high-risk livers, dynamic preservation using machine perfusion can decrease post-transplantation complications and may increase donor liver utilization by resuscitation and viability testing before transplantation. To further increase the availability of donor livers suitable for transplantation, new strategies are required that make it possible to use organs that are initially too damaged to be transplanted. With the current progress in experimental liver transplantation research, (long-term) normothermic machine perfusion may be used in the future as a dynamic platform for regenerative medicine approaches, enabling repair and regeneration of injured donor livers. Currently explored therapeutics such as defatting cocktails, ribonucleic acid interference, senolytics, and stem cell therapy may assist in the repair and/or regeneration of injured livers before transplantation. This review will provide a forecast of the future utility of normothermic machine perfusion for repair and regeneration of damaged donor livers to ultimately decrease the imbalance between donor liver demand and supply
Time scales in shear banding of wormlike micelles
Transient stress and birefringence measurements are performed on wormlike micellar solutions that "shear band", i.e. undergo flow-induced coexistence of states of different viscosities along a constant stress "plateau". Three well-defined relaxation times are found after a strain rate step between two banded flow states on the stress plateau. Using the Johnson-Segalman model, we relate these time scales to three qualitatively different stages in the evolution of the bands and the interface between them: band destabilization, reconstruction of the interface, and travel of the fully formed interface. The longest timescale is then used to estimate the magnitude of the (unknown) "gradient" terms that must be added to constitutive relations to explain the history independence of the steady flow and the plateau stress selection
Dynamic Fluctuation Phenomena in Double Membrane Films
Dynamics of double membrane films is investigated in the long-wavelength
limit including the overdamped squeezing mode. We demonstrate that thermal
fluctuations essentially modify the character of the mode due to its nonlinear
coupling to the transversal shear hydrodynamic mode. The corresponding Green
function acquires as a function of the frequency a cut along the imaginary
semi-axis. Fluctuations lead to increasing the attenuation of the squeezing
mode it becomes larger than the `bare' value.Comment: 7 pages, Revte
Entropic phase separation of linked beads
We study theoretically a model system of a transient network of microemulsion
droplets connected by telechelic polymers and explain recent experimental
findings. Despite the absence of any specific interactions between either the
droplets or polymer chains, we predict that as the number of polymers per drop
is increased, the system undergoes a first order phase separation into a dense,
highly connected phase, in equilibrium with dilute droplets, decorated by
polymer loops. The phase transition is purely entropic and is driven by the
interplay between the translational entropy of the drops and the
configurational entropy of the polymer connections between them. Because it is
dominated by entropic effects, the phase separation mechanism of the system is
extremely robust and does not depend on the particlular physical realization of
the network. The discussed model applies as well to other polymer linked
particle aggregates, such as nano-particles connected with short DNA linkers
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