Experimental study demonstrates enhanced toughness, fatigue resistance, and low friction in polymers with dense entanglements, highlighting structural designs for durable hydrogels.
Key Points
To determine how molecular entanglements that greatly outnumber cross-links influence the fracture, fatigue, and friction performance of polymers and hydrogels.
Synthesized polymer networks featuring dense chain entanglements combined with sparse chemical cross-links.
Hydrated the synthesized networks to equilibrium swelling in water to form hydrogels.
Dense entanglements distributed tension along and across polymer chains while sparse cross-links prevented disentanglement, producing polymers with high toughness, strength, and fatigue resistance.
Equilibrium-swollen hydrogels exhibited low mechanical hysteresis, low sliding friction, and high wear resistance.