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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Jun 22.
Published in final edited form as: Chem Rev. 2021 Apr 12;121(8):4309–4372. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.0c01088

Figure 16. Implementation of the design principle for resilient and tough hydrogels – delay dissipation:

Figure 16.

a. ideal polymer networks are resilient up to fracture due to the lack of dissipation mechanism. b. pre-stretching interpenetrating polymer networks to λR can make them both resilient and tough. c. prestretching polymer networks with high-functionality crosslinks to λR can make them both resilient and tough66. d. nano-/micro-fibrous polymer networks with resilient fibers can be both resilient and tough. e. the nominal stress-stretch curve of a resilient and tough fibrous PVA hydrogels69. f. the nominal stressstretch curves of a PAAm-alginate hydrogel with λR =5 66. g. the measured strain field around a crack in the PAAm-alginate hydrogel with λR =5. h. the stretch in the process zone can be much higher than λR = 5 66. e is adopted from Ref69. f, g and h are adopted from Ref66.