Multiphysical Modeling and Meshless Simulation of Electric-Sensitive Hydrogels

Abstract

According to a multiphase mixture theory, we have mathematically developed a multiphysical model with chemoelectromechanical coupling considerations, termed the multieffect-coupling electric-stimulus (MECe) model, to simulate the responsive behavior of electric-sensitive hydrogels immersed in a bath solution under an externally applied electric field. For solutions of the MECe model consisting of coupled nonlinear partial differential governing equations, a meshless Hermite-Cloud method with a hierarchical iteration technique has been used for a one-dimensional steady-state analysis of a hydrogel strip. The computed results are compared with the experimental data, and there is very good agreement. Simulations within the domains of both hydrogels and surrounding solutions also present distributions of the ionic concentrations and electric potential as well as the hydrogel displacement. The effects of various physical parameters on the response behavior of electric-stimulus responsive hydrogels are discussed in detail. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.