A theory of hydrogel mechanics that couples swelling and external flow

Abstract

Two aspects of hydrogel mechanics have been studied separately in the past. The first is the swelling and deswelling of gels in a quiescent solvent bath triggered by an environmental stimulus such as a change in temperature or pH, and the second is the solvent flow around and into a gel domain, driven by an external pressure gradient or moving boundary. The former neglects convection due to external flow, whereas the latter neglects solvent diffusion driven by a gradient in chemical potential. Motivated by engineering and biomedical applications where both aspects coexist and potentially interact with each other, this work presents a poroelasticity model that integrates these two aspects into a single framework, and demonstrates how the coupling between the two gives rise to novel physics in relatively simple one-dimensional and two-dimensional flows.