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Mechanical Recoverability And Damage Process Of Ionic-Covalent Paam-Alginate Hybrid Hydrogels, Hai Xin, Hugh Ralph Brown, Sina Naficy, Geoffrey M. Spinks

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Hydrogels consisting of interpenetrating networks of ionically and covalently crosslinked polymers showed high toughness and mechanical recoverability as a result of the dissociation and re-formation of ionic crosslinks. The present investigation aimed to provide a quantitative study on the mechanical recoverability and damage process of an example hybrid gel of calcium crosslinked alginate and covalently crosslinked polyacrylamide. Three series of load/unload tests were performed sequentially with the mechanical properties of the gel fully retrieved between the 2nd and 3rd load/unload series while only the partial recovery of mechanical properties was evident from the 1st to 2nd series. The load/unload curves …