Solvent-rich polyelectrolyte complexes display a wide range of rheological properties, when different environmental parameters are applied. Due to the low energy barrier of the complexation (~10 kT), these materials possess tunable properties, with the states of these materials varying from Newtonian liquids to very tough hydrogels. This thesis aims to...
To relate the mechanical responses of hard-soft copolymer systems with their microstructures, a coarse-grained molecular dynamics (CGMD) approach is employed. With the generic bead-spring polymer model mapped from atomistic simulations, this dissertation first studies the morphology of structures with various hard-soft compositions and interactions between hard beads. Following that, this...