Theory and Simulation for elasticity of slide-ring gels

Polymer networks with crosslinks slidable along chains was first used to model entangled polymer networks, and later achieved chemically by connecting slide-rings on the chains. This kind of networks are called slide-ring gels. These gels are shown to exhibit non-Hookean elasticity and higher toughness and extensibility without hysteresis. The most striking difference between these networks from conventional polymer networks is that strand sections can exchange monomers and thus homogenize the tension. We develop single-chain analytical models designed to quantitatively describe the sliding effects on the elasticity of slide-ring gels and test these models by simulations. We find that slide-ring gels are getting softer under both uniaxial deformation and swelling. The fraction of chains with high tension is significantly reduced in comparison with crosslinked network. The tension homoginezation and much smaller fraction of strands with high tension delays the fracture to much larger deformation and leads to much higher toughness of slide-ring gels in comparison with conventional cross-linked gels.