Fracture of a biopolymer gel as a viscoplastic disentanglement process

Abstract

We present an extensive experimental study of mode-I, steady, slow crack dynamics in gelatin gels. Taking advantage of the sensitivity of the elastic stiffness to gel composition and history we confirm and extend the model for fracture of physical hydrogels which we proposed in a previous paper (Nature Materials, doi:10.1038/nmat1666 (2006)), which attributes decohesion to the viscoplastic pull-out of the network-constituting chains. So, we propose that, in contrast with chemically cross-linked ones, reversible gels fracture without chain scission.

References in corpus (3)

• Solvent control of crack dynamics in a reversible hydrogel
• Fracture of a biopolymer gel as a viscoplastic disentanglement process
• Mechanically induced helix-coil transition in biopolymer networks

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• Fracture of a biopolymer gel as a viscoplastic disentanglement process
• Fracture of dual crosslink gels with permanent and transient crosslinks
• Fractures in complex fluids: the case of transient networks
• Magic angles and cross-hatching instability in hydrogel fracture
• From thermally activated to viscosity controlled fracture of biopolymer hydrogels
• Mode I fracture of a biopolymer gel: rate-dependent dissipation and large deformations disentangled
• Crack tip kinematics reveal the cohesive zone structure in brittle hydrogel fracture
• Role of normal stress in the creep dynamics and failure of a biopolymer gel
• Stationary crack propagation in a two-dimensional visco-elastic network model
• Effect of Random Fiber Network and Fracture Toughness on the Onset of Cavitation in Soft Materials