Fibers on Surface of Thermo-responsive Gels

Collaborators

Tao Zhang, Victor V. Yashin, and Anna C. Balazs$^*$

Chemical Engineering Department, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261
$^*$E-mail: balazs@pitt.edu

Motivation

Using computational modeling, we pattern the outer layers of thin, thermo-responsive gels with elastic fibers and thereby design stable structures that could not be achieved with the fibers in the interior of the network.

Approach

To perform these studies, we simulate the fiber-decorated gels with the gel lattice spring model (gLSM) and determine how the temperature, arrangement and number of the fibers control the bending and curvature of the thin films.

Acknowledgments

ACB gratefully acknowledges financial support from the DOE.