Collagen forms the structural scaffold of connective tissues in all mammals. Tissues are
remarkably resistant against mechanical deformations because collagen molecules …

Many materials have a network of fibers as their main structural component and are referred
to as network materials. Their strength and toughness are important in both engineering and …

Dealloying has emerged as a new route to the synthesis of porous or nanoporous materials
for a variety of novel structural/functional applications. However, dealloyed (nano-) porous …

Upon external mechanical loading, amorphous solids, such as foams, colloids, or molecular
glasses, exhibit a yielding transition from an elastic response at small deformations to a …

The stress response of polymer double networks depends not only on the properties of the
constituent networks but also on the interactions arising between them. Here, we …

Soft network materials exist in numerous forms ranging from polymer networks, such as
elastomers, to fiber networks, such as collagen. In addition, in colloidal gels, an underlying …

The toughness of a polymer material can increase significantly if two networks are combined
into one material. This toughening effect is a consequence of a transition from a brittle to a …

Mechanical rigidity and disorder are two important parameters that influence the failure
process of solid materials. We investigate the nonlinear mechanics under their coupled …

Disordered networks of semiflexible filaments are common support structures in biology.
Familiar examples include fibrous matrices in blood clots, bacterial biofilms, and essential …

While most chemical bonds weaken under the action of mechanical force (called slip bond
behavior), nature has developed bonds that do the opposite: their lifetime increases as force …