2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
atigue behavior and underlying mechanism of tough and self-healing hydrogels
| Project/Area Number |
19K23617
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Review Section |
0501:Physical chemistry, functional solid state chemistry, organic chemistry, polymers, organic materials, biomolecular chemistry, and related fields
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| Research Institution | Hokkaido University |
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Principal Investigator |
CUI KUNPENG 北海道大学, 化学反応創成研究拠点, 特任助教 (30843198)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-08-30 – 2021-03-31
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| Keywords | hydrogels / tough and self-healing / multiscale structure / fatigue resistance |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Load-bearing biological tissues, such as muscles, are highly fatigue resistant, but how the exquisite hierarchical structures of biological tissues contribute to their excellent fatigue resistance is not well understood. In this project, we studied antifatigue properties of soft materials with hierarchical structures using polyampholyte hydrogels (PA gels) as a simple model system. PA gels are tough and self-healing, similar to biotissues. By combining fatigue measurement and time-resolved synchrotron radiation small-angle X-ray scattering we discovered that, upon fatigue cycling, the bicontinuous phase networks in PA gels form a transient oriented structure to induce a pronounced crack blunting and crack deceleration effect. We further revealed that the phase contrast between soft and hard phase is vital important for suppressing the fast crack growth. These findings provide design strategy for tough and fatigue-resistant materials.
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| Free Research Field |
polymer physics
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| Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
We revealed the antifatigue mechanism of tough and self-healing polyampholyte hydrogels, which not only give important hints to understand fatigue-resistant behavior of biotissues with complex hierarchical structures, but also provide design strategy for tough and fatigue-resistant hydrogels.
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