Open AccessWater cavitation of hydrogels
Author(s) -
Zimberlin Jessica A.,
Crosby Alfred J.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of polymer science part b: polymer physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 145
eISSN - 1099-0488
pISSN - 0887-6266
DOI - 10.1002/polb.21968
Subject(s) - cavitation , rheology , self healing hydrogels , materials science , surface tension , vinyl alcohol , composite material , elastic modulus , instability , polymer chemistry , thermodynamics , mechanics , polymer , physics
Using the cavitation rheology (CR) technique developed in our labs, we show that fluids with negligible interfacial tensions with a surrounding material can be used to induce an elastic, cavitation instability in that material. We do this by changing the cavitation media from air, which was demonstrated to induce cavitation at the tip of a syringe needle in previous studies, to water, which has a negligible surface tension with the surrounding poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel material. In this case, the critical pressure in which this instability occurs can be directly related to the elastic modulus of the surrounding network and is shown to be nearly independent of length scale. This independence of size scale has important implications in the use of CR for the characterization of mechanical properties from molecular to macroscopic length scales. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 48: 1423–1427, 2010