Change of Weighted Network Structure of Elastomer during Uniaxial Elongation

Abstract

Previous studies on elastomers have revealed that the physical property of elastomers can be affected by the topological feature of their network structure. In the paper, for the simulation data of construction and elongation of elastomers, we analyzed the weighted network structure of each elastomer, where each node is a crosslinking point and the distance between crosslinking points is incorporated into the weight of a link. We derived centrality of each link based on the idea of closeness centrality in complex networks. We found that how the centrality of each node changes during elongation was significantly affected by the concentration under which crosslinking reaction was carried out, implicating that the weighted network structure of elastomer changed differently according to the reaction concentration.