Transient analysis of the effect of the initial fixed charge density on the kinetic characteristics of the ionic-strength-sensitive hydrogel by a multi-effect-coupling model.

A chemo-electro-mechanical model is presented in this paper for transient simulation of the characteristics of the kinetic ionic-strength-sensitive hydrogel. It is termed the multi-effect-coupling ionic-strength-stimulus (MECis) model and it couples the chemical and electrical as well as mechanical effects together to predict responsive characteristics of the smart hydrogel to the ionic-strength stimulus of an environmental solution based on the laws of conservation of mass and momentum. The kinetic deforming characteristics simulated by the MECis model are compared with the experiments and achieve a good agreement. Then, the influence of the initial fixed charge density, as a material property of the hydrogel, on the kinetics of the ionic-strength-sensitive hydrogel is transiently analyzed, providing a deep view of the kinetics performance of the smart hydrogel.