Swelling-driven mechanics of partially cross-linked polymer gels: Steady state solutions

The study aims to investigate how the mechanics of swelling of a polymer gel is affected by the presence of free-chains due to a partial cross-linking process. The analysis is focused on the equilibrium solution of the mechano-diffusion problem under different as-prepared states, corresponding to different polymer network fractions before diffusion starts. The limit situations of perfectly cross-linked polymer gel and solution of polymeric chains are recovered by the model.