Effective medium theory of semiflexible filamentous networks.
We develop an effective medium approach to the mechanics of disordered, semiflexible polymer networks and study the response of such networks to uniform and nonuniform strain. We identify distinct elastic regimes in which the contributions of either filament bending or stretching to the macroscopic modulus vanish. We also show that our effective medium theory predicts a crossover between affine and nonaffine strain, consistent with both prior numerical studies and scaling theory.
Department of Chemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
Moumita
M
Das
F C
FC
MacKintosh
Alex J
AJ
Levine