CRITICAL PROPERTIES OF VISCOELASTICITY OF GELS AND ELASTIC PERCOLATION NETWORKS

Two superelastic percolation models are proposed to explain the observed behavior of the viscosity of gels near the gel point. The elastic moduli G of one model diverge at the percolation threshold pc with a critical exponent given by p/2, where and p are the critical exponents of percolation correlation length and the strength of the infinite cluster, respectively. We propose that this system can model the behavior of in the Zimm limit. In the second model, which we propose to be appropriate for the Rouse limit, G diverge at pc with an exponent Large-scale simulations confirm these scaling laws. The experimentally observed deviations from these scaling laws are also discussed. © 1990 The American Physical Society.