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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Thin film models for an active gel
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2017) Kitavtsev, Georgy; Münch, Andreas; Wagner, Barbara
    In this study we present a free-boundary problem for an active liquid crystal based on the Beris-Edwards theory that uses a tensorial order parameter and includes active contributions to the stress tensor to analyse the rich defect structure observed in applications such as the Adenosinetriphosphate (ATP) driven motion of a thin film of an actin filament network. The small aspect ratio of the film geometry allows for an asymptotic approximation of the free-boundary problem in the limit of weak elasticity of the network and strong active terms. The new thin film model captures the defect dynamics in the bulk as well as wall defects and thus presents a significant extension of previous models based on the Leslie-Erickson-Parodi theory. Analytic expressions are derived that reveal the interplay of anchoring conditions, film thickness and active terms and their control of transitions of flow structure.
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    New insights on the interfacial tension of electrochemical interfaces and the Lippmann equation
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2015) Dreyer, Wolfgang; Guhlke, Clemens; Landstorfer, Manuel; Neumann, Johannes; Müller, Rüdiger
    The Lippmann equation is considered as universal relationship between interfacial tension, double layer charge, and cell potential. Based on the framework of continuum thermo-electrodynamics we provide some crucial new insights to this relation. In a previous work we have derived a general thermodynamic consistent model for electrochemical interfaces, which showed a remarkable agreement to single crystal experimental data. Here we apply the model to a curved liquid metal electrode. If the electrode radius is large compared to the Debye length, we apply asymptotic analysis methods and obtain the Lippmann equation. We give precise definitions of the involved quantities and show that the interfacial tension of the Lippmann equation is composed of the surface tension of our general model, and contributions arising from the adjacent space charge layers. This finding is confirmed by a comparison of our model to experimental data of several mercury-electrolyte interfaces. We obtain qualitative and quantitative agreement in the 2V potential range for various salt concentrations. We also discuss the validity of our asymptotic model when the electrode radius is comparable to the Debye length.
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    Surface induced phase separation of a swelling hydrogel
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2018) Hennessy, Matthew G.; Münch, Andreas; Wagner, Barbara
    We present a formulation of the free boundary problem for a hydrogel that accounts for the interfacial free energy and finite strain due to the large deformation of the polymer network during solvent transport across the free boundary. For the geometry of an initially dry layer fixed at a rigid substrate, our model predicts a phase transition when a critical value of the solvent concentration has been reached near the free boundary. A one-dimensional case study shows that depending on the flux rate at the free boundary an initial saturation front is followed by spinodal decomposition of the hydrogel and the formation of an interfacial front that moves through the layer. Moreover, increasing the shear modulus of the elastic network delays or even suppresses phase separation.
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    An asymptotic analysis for a generalized Cahn--Hilliard system with fractional operators
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2020) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In a recent paper the same authors have proved existence, uniqueness and regularity results for a class of viscous and nonviscous Cahn--Hilliard systems of two operator equations in which nonlinearities of double-well type, like regular or logarithmic potentials, as well as nonsmooth potentials with indicator functions, were admitted. The operators appearing in the system equations are fractional powers in the spectral sense of general linear operators, which are densely defined, unbounded, selfadjoint, and monotone in the Hilbert space of square-integrable functions on a bounded and smooth three-dimensional domain, and have compact resolvents. Here, for the case of the viscous system, we analyze the asymptotic behavior of the solution as the fractional power coefficient of the second operator tends to zero. We prove convergence to a phase relaxation problem at the limit, and we also investigate this limiting problem, in which an additional term containing the projection of the phase variable on the kernel of the second operator appears.
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    Asymptotic analysis of a tumor growth model with fractional operators
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2019) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In this paper, we study a system of three evolutionary operator equations involving fractional powers of selfadjoint, monotone, unbounded, linear operators having compact resolvents. This system constitutes a generalized and relaxed version of a phase field system of Cahn--Hilliard type modelling tumor growth that has originally been proposed in Hawkins-Daarud et al. (Int. J. Numer. Math. Biomed. Eng. 28 (2012), 3--24). The original phase field system and certain relaxed versions thereof have been studied in recent papers co-authored by the present authors and E. Rocca. The model consists of a Cahn--Hilliard equation for the tumor cell fraction φ, coupled to a reaction-diffusion equation for a function S representing the nutrient-rich extracellular water volume fraction. Effects due to fluid motion are neglected. Motivated by the possibility that the diffusional regimes governing the evolution of the different constituents of the model may be of different (e.g., fractional) type, the present authors studied in a recent note a generalization of the systems investigated in the abovementioned works. Under rather general assumptions, well-posedness and regularity results have been shown. In particular, by writing the equation governing the evolution of the chemical potential in the form of a general variational inequality, also singular or nonsmooth contributions of logarithmic or of double obstacle type to the energy density could be admitted. In this note, we perform an asymptotic analysis of the governing system as two (small) relaxation parameters approach zero separately and simultaneously. Corresponding well-posedness and regularity results are established for the respective cases; in particular, we give a detailed discussion which assumptions on the admissible nonlinearities have to be postulated in each of the occurring cases.
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    Asymptotic analyses and error estimates for a Cahn-Hilliard type phase field system modelling tumor growth
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2015) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Rocca, Elisabetta; Sprekels, Jürgen
    This paper is concerned with a phase field system of Cahn-Hilliard type that is related to a tumor growth model and consists of three equations in gianni terms of the variables order parameter, chemical potential and nutrient concentration. This system has been investigated in the recent papers citeCGH and citeCGRS gianni from the viewpoint of well-posedness, long time bhv and asymptotic convergence as two positive viscosity coefficients tend to zero at the same time. Here, we continue the analysis performed in citeCGRS by showing two independent sets of results as just one of the coefficents tends to zero, the other remaining fixed. We prove convergence results, uniqueness of solutions to the two resulting limit problems, and suitable error estimates
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    Self-consistent field theory for a polymer brush. Part II: The effective chemical potential
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2019) Münch, Andreas; Wagner, Barbara
    The most successful mean-field model to describe the collective behaviour of the large class of macromolecular polymers is the self-consistent field theory (SCFT). Still, even for the simple system of a grafted dry polymer brush, the mean-field equations have to be solved numerically. As one of very few alternatives that offer some analytical tractability the strong-stretching theory (SST) has led to explicit expressions for the effective chemical potential and consequently the free energy to promote an understanding of the underlying physics. Yet, a direct derivation of these analytical results from the SCFT model is still outstanding. In this study we present a systematic asymptotic theory based on matched asymtptotic expansions to obtain the effective chemical potential from the SCFT model for a dry polymer brush for large but finite stretching.
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    Vanishing viscosities and error estimate for a Cahn-Hilliard type phase field system related to tumor growth
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2015) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Rocca, Elisabetta; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In this paper we perform an asymptotic analysis for two different vanishing viscosity coefficients occurring in a phase field system of Cahn--Hilliard type that was recently introduced in order to approximate a tumor growth model. In particular, we extend some recent results obtained in [Colli-Gilardi-Hilhorst 2015], letting the two positive viscosity parameters tend to zero independently from each other and weakening the conditions on the initial data in such a way as to maintain the nonlinearities of the PDE system as general as possible. Finally, under proper growth conditions on the interaction potential, we prove an error estimate leading also to the uniqueness result for the limit system.
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    Self-consistent field theory for a polymer brush. Part I: Asymptotic analysis in the strong-stretching limit
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2019) Münch, Andreas; Wagner, Barbara
    In this study we consider the self-consistent field theory for a dry, in- compressible polymer brush, densely grafted on a substrate, describing the average segment density of a polymer in terms of an effective chemical potential for the interaction between the segments of the polymer chain. We present a systematic singular perturbation analysis of the self-consistent field theory in the strong-stretching limit, when the length scale of the ratio of the radius of gyration of the polymer chain to the extension of the brush from the substrate vanishes. Our analysis yields, for the first time, an approximation for the average segment density that is correct to leading order in the outer scaling and resolves the boundary layer singularity at the end of the polymer brush in the strong-stretching limit. We also show that in this limit our analytical results agree increasingly well with our numerical solutions to the full model equations comprising the self-consistent field theory.