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SUMMARY:IMX Seminar Series - Polymer Brushes on Gels: Imitating the Lubric
 ious Properties of Cartilage
DTSTART:20201109T131500
DTEND:20201109T141500
DTSTAMP:20260428T033655Z
UID:e02f7c0271bfa668d3fef9b2904509619c15f42b0f265d73dae5ea7e
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Nic Spencer\, ETH Zürich\, Switzerland\nCartilage is an
  extraordinary material\, both in terms of its impressive lubricious prope
 rties and the\nfact that it continues to function\, without a blood supply
 \, for many decades\, providing very low friction coefficients. In the sim
 plest terms\, cartilage consists of a hydrogel material with a stiffness g
 radient that interfaces to bone\, attached\, at the outer edge\, to loose 
 polysaccharide chains\, which are thought to provide a lubricating functio
 n. Polymer brushes\, which bear a resemblance to these loose chains\, are 
 well known for their lubricious properties\, but when coating hard-hard co
 ntacts\, minor disturbances in tribological conditions or the inclusion of
  foreign bodies\, can rapidly lead to catastrophic failure\, as asperities
  on one hard countersurface encouter the opposing brush. This problem is s
 ignificantly reduced when the underlying substrate is soft\, as in the car
 tilage case. When imitating cartilage\, elastomers can provide this soft b
 ase layer\, but an even more effective substrate for brushes in tribologic
 al applications is a gel. These can be readily tailored to ensure compatib
 ility with the brush\, and provide a number of cushioning functions\, incl
 uding elastic\, viscoelastic\, and porelastic\, depending on the loading c
 onditions. In our laboratory\, we have explored a variety of systems for i
 mitating cartilage\, some of which have actually reached comparable fricti
 on coefficients to those observed in cartilage\, as well as toughness valu
 es and wear resistance that render them of interest for medical and indust
 rial applications.\n 
LOCATION:Zoom https://epfl.zoom.us/j/95940364570
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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