Abstract
For soft materials with high water content under compression loading, their water-expelled behavior leads to volume changes and should be considered in constitutive equations. In this study, uniaxial compression experiments are conducted for saturated hydrogels of different sizes in different environments. Furthermore, the constitutive equations of uniaxial compression combined water-expelled behavior considering environmental factors and the size effect were derived, which may describe the experimental results well and reveal the mechanism of the difference in mechanical behavior of hydrogels in different environments and different sizes. Our work has important reference value for characterizing the mechanical behavior of biological soft matter.
Acknowledgements
We thank LetPub (www.letpub.com) for its linguistic assistance during the preparation of this manuscript.
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This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
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Notes on contributors
Yuting Zhang
Yuting Zhang and Yongrou Zhang performed the experiment and wrote the manuscript; Liqun Tang contributed significantly to the theoretical analysis; Zejia Liu, Zhenyu Jiang, Yiping Liu, and Licheng Zhou helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions; and Xuefeng Zhou contributed to writing the manuscript.
Yongrou Zhang
Yuting Zhang and Yongrou Zhang performed the experiment and wrote the manuscript; Liqun Tang contributed significantly to the theoretical analysis; Zejia Liu, Zhenyu Jiang, Yiping Liu, and Licheng Zhou helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions; and Xuefeng Zhou contributed to writing the manuscript.
Liqun Tang
Yuting Zhang and Yongrou Zhang performed the experiment and wrote the manuscript; Liqun Tang contributed significantly to the theoretical analysis; Zejia Liu, Zhenyu Jiang, Yiping Liu, and Licheng Zhou helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions; and Xuefeng Zhou contributed to writing the manuscript.
Zejia Liu
Yuting Zhang and Yongrou Zhang performed the experiment and wrote the manuscript; Liqun Tang contributed significantly to the theoretical analysis; Zejia Liu, Zhenyu Jiang, Yiping Liu, and Licheng Zhou helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions; and Xuefeng Zhou contributed to writing the manuscript.
Zhenyu Jiang
Yuting Zhang and Yongrou Zhang performed the experiment and wrote the manuscript; Liqun Tang contributed significantly to the theoretical analysis; Zejia Liu, Zhenyu Jiang, Yiping Liu, and Licheng Zhou helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions; and Xuefeng Zhou contributed to writing the manuscript.
Yiping Liu
Yuting Zhang and Yongrou Zhang performed the experiment and wrote the manuscript; Liqun Tang contributed significantly to the theoretical analysis; Zejia Liu, Zhenyu Jiang, Yiping Liu, and Licheng Zhou helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions; and Xuefeng Zhou contributed to writing the manuscript.
Licheng Zhou
Yuting Zhang and Yongrou Zhang performed the experiment and wrote the manuscript; Liqun Tang contributed significantly to the theoretical analysis; Zejia Liu, Zhenyu Jiang, Yiping Liu, and Licheng Zhou helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions; and Xuefeng Zhou contributed to writing the manuscript.
Xuefeng Zhou
Yuting Zhang and Yongrou Zhang performed the experiment and wrote the manuscript; Liqun Tang contributed significantly to the theoretical analysis; Zejia Liu, Zhenyu Jiang, Yiping Liu, and Licheng Zhou helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions; and Xuefeng Zhou contributed to writing the manuscript.