Structural and mechanical properties of bio-inspired polymer networks
Abstract
We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the structural and mechanical properties of bead-spring polymer networks. In this study we deal with systems which are biologically-relevant as they result from the action of enzymes, i.e. biological catalysts. The latter convert repulsive monomers into attractive ones and hence, starting from a polymer solution, trigger the formation of a physically-crosslinked polymer network. This gel has a remarkably regular mesostructure in the form of a cluster phase. We simulate uniaxial tension of these networks. The evolution of their structural and mechanical properties during deformation is monitored by computing quantities such as the anisotropic pair correlation functions, Poisson's ratio, elastic moduli and stress-strain curves, and the effects of temperature and system composition (i.e. fraction of attractive monomers) are investigated.