Chemically Responsive Hydrogel Deformation Mechanics: A Review
1
Bernal Institute, University of Limerick, V94 T9PX Limerick, Ireland
2
School of Engineering, University of Limerick, V94 T9PX Limerick, Ireland
3
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Eindhoven, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Molecules 2019, 24(19), 3521; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24193521
Received: 9 September 2019
/
Revised: 25 September 2019
/
Accepted: 26 September 2019
/
Published: 28 September 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Supramolecular Gel)
A hydrogel is a polymeric three-dimensional network structure. The applications of this material type are diversified over a broad range of fields. Their soft nature and similarity to natural tissue allows for their use in tissue engineering, medical devices, agriculture, and industrial health products. However, as the demand for such materials increases, the need to understand the material mechanics is paramount across all fields. As a result, many attempts to numerically model the swelling and drying of chemically responsive hydrogels have been published. Material characterization of the mechanical properties of a gel bead under osmotic loading is difficult. As a result, much of the literature has implemented variants of swelling theories. Therefore, this article focuses on reviewing the current literature and outlining the numerical models of swelling hydrogels as a result of exposure to chemical stimuli. Furthermore, the experimental techniques attempting to quantify bulk gel mechanics are summarized. Finally, an overview on the mechanisms governing the formation of geometric surface instabilities during transient swelling of soft materials is provided.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
hydrogels; superabsorbent polymers; osmotic swelling; finite deformation; kinetics; thermodynamics; hydrogel mechanics; surface instabilities; chemically-responsive
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Fennell, E.; Huyghe, J.M. Chemically Responsive Hydrogel Deformation Mechanics: A Review. Molecules 2019, 24, 3521. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24193521
AMA Style
Fennell E, Huyghe JM. Chemically Responsive Hydrogel Deformation Mechanics: A Review. Molecules. 2019; 24(19):3521. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24193521
Chicago/Turabian StyleFennell, Eanna, and Jacques M. Huyghe. 2019. "Chemically Responsive Hydrogel Deformation Mechanics: A Review" Molecules 24, no. 19: 3521. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24193521
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
