Study of swelling behavior of temperature sensitive hydrogels considering inextensibility of network

Abstract

In this work, the equilibrium swelling of temperature sensitive hydrogel networks is studied with an emphasis on the chain locking of the network. Using Gent model for elastic part of free energy and modifying the mixing part of the free energy, a continuous model is developed which consider inextensibility of the network chains and has a good agreement with the experimental data particularly for smaller values of crosslinking density of the network and larger values of the swelling ratio. After validating the modified model, it is employed for the studying the inhomogeneous swelling of a spherical shell on a hard core both analytically and numerically.The analytical solution is used for validating the numerical method. Finally, the inhomogeneous swelling of a bilayer beam with an active temperature sensitive hydrogel is investigated and the results are presented. The obtained results show the importance level of considering the chain locking in swelling of the network in the applied problems.

Composite Hydrogel of Poly(acrylamide) and Starch as Potential System for Controlled Release of Amoxicillin and Inhibition of Bacterial Growth

“…Materials capable of responding to multiple external stimuli, such as temperature [1], pH [2], ionic strength [3], electrical potentials [4], and biochemical activity [5], have received growing interest in recent years to be used in biomedical applications [6][7][8]. Particularly, polymeric hydrogels are well recognized within the field of stimulus-sensitive materials.…”