Kinetics of water flow through a polymer gel

摘要

The water flow through the poly(acrylamide) gel under a constant water pressure is measuredby newly designed apparatus. The Young modulus and Poisson's ratio of the rod shape gels are measuredby the uni-axial elongation experiments, which determine the longitudinal modulus independently fromthe water flow experiments. The time evolution of the water flow in the dilute gel is calculated based on thecollective diffusion model of the polymer network coupled with the friction between the polymer networkand the water. The calculated results are compared with the time evolution of the flow experiments, andthe values of the longitudinal modulus and the friction coefficient are estimated. The estimated valuesare consistent with the results of our mechanical-response experiments and the light scattering experi-ments reported previously. We find that the time evolution of the water flow is well described by a singlecharacteristic relaxation time predicted by our model for dilute gels.