Multiscale mechanical characterization of biomimetic physically associating gels

The mechanical response of living tissue is important to understanding the injury-risk associated with impact events. Often, ballistic gelatin or synthetic materials are developed to serve as tissue surrogates in mechanical testing. Unfortunately, current materials are not optimal and present several experimental challenges. Bulk measurement techniques, such as compression and shear testing geometries, do not fully represent the stress states and rate of loading experienced in an actual impact event. Indentation testing induces deviatoric stress states as well as strain rates not typically available to bulk measurement equipment. In this work, a ballistic gelatin and two styrene-isoprene triblock copolymer gels are tested and compared using both macroscale and microscale measurements. A methodology is presented to conduct instrumented indentation experiments on materials with a modulus far below 1 MPa. The synthetic triblock copolymer gels were much easier to test than the ballistic gelatin. Compared to ballistic gelatin, both copolymer gels were found to have a greater degree of thermal stability. All of the materials exhibit strain-rate dependence, although the magnitude of dependence was a function of the loading rate and testing method.

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Comparison of Substructures Between Uniaxial and Biaxial Deformation in 1100-0 Aluminum

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100096989 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 39 ◽

pp. 52-53

Author(s):

D. L. Rohr ◽

S. S. Hecker

Keyword(s):

Plastic Strain ◽

Cell Walls ◽

Room Temperature ◽

Mechanical Response ◽

Biaxial Tension ◽

Initial Deformation ◽

Uniaxial Deformation ◽

Biaxial Deformation ◽

Stress States ◽

Comprehensive Study

As part of a comprehensive study of microstructural and mechanical response of metals to uniaxial and biaxial deformations, the development of substructure in 1100 A1 has been studied over a range of plastic strain for two stress states.Specimens of 1100 aluminum annealed at 350 C were tested in uniaxial (UT) and balanced biaxial tension (BBT) at room temperature to different strain levels. The biaxial specimens were produced by the in-plane punch stretching technique. Areas of known strain levels were prepared for TEM by lapping followed by jet electropolishing. All specimens were examined in a JEOL 200B run at 150 and 200 kV within 24 to 36 hours after testing.The development of the substructure with deformation is shown in Fig. 1 for both stress states. Initial deformation produces dislocation tangles, which form cell walls by 10% uniaxial deformation, and start to recover to form subgrains by 25%. The results of several hundred measurements of cell/subgrain sizes by a linear intercept technique are presented in Table I.

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Construction of plastic contact deformation maps on ceramics: a case study on aluminum nitride

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100165641 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 54 ◽

pp. 636-637

Author(s):

D. L. Callahan

Keyword(s):

Plastic Deformation ◽

Aluminum Nitride ◽

Mechanical Response ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Bright Field Image ◽

Perfectly Plastic ◽

Contrast Analysis ◽

Deformation Patterns

Modern polishing, precision machining and microindentation techniques allow the processing and mechanical characterization of ceramics at nanometric scales and within entirely plastic deformation regimes. The mechanical response of most ceramics to such highly constrained contact is not predictable from macroscopic properties and the microstructural deformation patterns have proven difficult to characterize by the application of any individual technique. In this study, TEM techniques of contrast analysis and CBED are combined with stereographic analysis to construct a three-dimensional microstructure deformation map of the surface of a perfectly plastic microindentation on macroscopically brittle aluminum nitride.The bright field image in Figure 1 shows a lg Vickers microindentation contained within a single AlN grain far from any boundaries. High densities of dislocations are evident, particularly near facet edges but are not individually resolvable. The prominent bend contours also indicate the severity of plastic deformation. Figure 2 is a selected area diffraction pattern covering the entire indentation area.

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Measurement techniques for the characterization of the European mini test chip

10.3403/00779226u ◽

2015 ◽

Keyword(s):

Measurement Techniques ◽

Test Chip

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Visco-Hyperelastic Characterization of the Equine Immature Zona Pellucida

Materials ◽

10.3390/ma14051223 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (5) ◽

pp. 1223

Author(s):

Elisa Ficarella ◽

Mohammad Minooei ◽

Lorenzo Santoro ◽

Elisabetta Toma ◽

Bartolomeo Trentadue ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Zona Pellucida ◽

Soft Matter ◽

Mechanical Response ◽

Mechanical Characterization ◽

Nonlinear Material ◽

Prony Series ◽

Critical Comparison ◽

Highly Nonlinear ◽

Good Agreement

This article presents a very detailed study on the mechanical characterization of a highly nonlinear material, the immature equine zona pellucida (ZP) membrane. The ZP is modeled as a visco-hyperelastic soft matter. The Arruda–Boyce constitutive equation and the two-term Prony series are identified as the most suitable models for describing the hyperelastic and viscous components, respectively, of the ZP’s mechanical response. Material properties are identified via inverse analysis based on nonlinear optimization which fits nanoindentation curves recorded at different rates. The suitability of the proposed approach is fully demonstrated by the very good agreement between AFM data and numerically reconstructed force–indentation curves. A critical comparison of mechanical behavior of two immature ZP membranes (i.e., equine and porcine ZPs) is also carried out considering the information on the structure of these materials available from electron microscopy investigations documented in the literature.

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Numerical Characterization of Cohesive and Non-Cohesive ‘Sediments’ under Different Consolidation States Using 3D DEM Triaxial Experiments

Processes ◽

10.3390/pr8101252 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (10) ◽

pp. 1252

Author(s):

Hadar Elyashiv ◽

Revital Bookman ◽

Lennart Siemann ◽

Uri ten Brink ◽

Katrin Huhn

Keyword(s):

Mechanical Response ◽

Burial Depth ◽

Cohesive Sediments ◽

Third Order ◽

First Order ◽

Numerical Characterization ◽

Response To Stress ◽

Bond Strengths ◽

Individual Bond

The Discrete Element Method has been widely used to simulate geo-materials due to time and scale limitations met in the field and laboratories. While cohesionless geo-materials were the focus of many previous studies, the deformation of cohesive geo-materials in 3D remained poorly characterized. Here, we aimed to generate a range of numerical ‘sediments’, assess their mechanical response to stress and compare their response with laboratory tests, focusing on differences between the micro- and macro-material properties. We simulated two endmembers—clay (cohesive) and sand (cohesionless). The materials were tested in a 3D triaxial numerical setup, under different simulated burial stresses and consolidation states. Variations in particle contact or individual bond strengths generate first order influence on the stress–strain response, i.e., a different deformation style of the numerical sand or clay. Increased burial depth generates a second order influence, elevating peak shear strength. Loose and dense consolidation states generate a third order influence of the endmember level. The results replicate a range of sediment compositions, empirical behaviors and conditions. We propose a procedure to characterize sediments numerically. The numerical ‘sediments’ can be applied to simulate processes in sediments exhibiting variations in strength due to post-seismic consolidation, bioturbation or variations in sedimentation rates.

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Facile Synthesis of Cu2O Nanocubes in Triblock Copolymer Solutions

Solid State Phenomena ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/ssp.121-123.275 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 121-123 ◽

pp. 275-278

Author(s):

Jin Hua Jiang ◽

Qiu Ming Gao

Keyword(s):

Triblock Copolymer ◽

Solar Spectrum ◽

Blue Shift ◽

Edge Length ◽

Promising Candidate ◽

Organic Species ◽

Transmission Electron ◽

Ft Ir ◽

Average Edge Length

Cuprous oxide and related materials in nanosizes are of much interest and investigated extensively recently. It is reported here that cubic Cu2O nanocubes were synthesized successfully in aqueous solutions at room temperature in air condition. Copper (II) salts in water were reduced with ascorbate acid in air, using the nonionic pluronic amphiphilic triblock copolymer EO20PO70EO20 (P123) as the template-directing and protecting agent. The average edge length of the cubes varied from 50 to 100 nm. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been used for the shape and structural characterization of the obtained Cu2O nanocubes. The UV-Vis spectra showed an obvious blue-shift (0.53 eV), compared to the band gap of the bulk Cu2O crystal, which makes it a promising candidate in solar energy conversion since this sample can make use of higher energy visible rays of solar spectrum. In the FT-IR spectra the peak of Cu-O bond for the Cu2O is clearly distinguished and several weak peaks of the C-H, C-C and C=O bonds for the organic species can also be detectable, implying a little P123 residua in the products. The effect of the triblock copolymer P123 on the growth of the Cu2O nanocubes is discussed.

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Experimental-Numerical Characterization of Ordinary Concrete at the Meso-Scale

10.20944/preprints202102.0220.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

GIANLUCA MAZZUCCO ◽

Beatrice Pomaro ◽

Giovanna Xotta ◽

Enrico Garbin ◽

Valentina Salomoni ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Yield Criterion ◽

Plain Concrete ◽

Point Of View ◽

Good Prediction ◽

Deformation Capacity ◽

Compression Tests ◽

Fe Method ◽

Stress States ◽

Meso Scale

Modeling the post-peak behaviour of brittle materials like concrete is still a challenge from the point of view of computational mechanics, due to the strong nonlinearities arising in the material behaviour during softening and the complexity of the yield criterion that may describe their deformation capacity in generic triaxial stress states. A numerical model for plain concrete in compression is formulated within the framework of the coupled elasto-plastic-damage theory. The aim is to simulate via the Finite Element (FE) method the stress-strain behaviour of concrete at the meso-scale, where local confinement effects generally characterize the cement paste under the action of the surrounding aggregates. The mechanical characterization of the components are accomplished through a specific experimental campaign. With the subsequent validation study, it is shown that a few calibration parameters give a good prediction of load strength and deformation capacity coming from real uniaxial compression tests.

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