Hydrogels are fluid-filled polymer networks whose mechanical behavior is governed by the coupling between network deformation, solvent transport, molecular architecture, and time-dependent dissipation. In this seminar, I will present a continuum modeling framework for hydrogels that progressively incorporates these physical mechanisms across several material systems. I will begin with a poroelastic model for brush gels, where the branched molecular architecture is represented through structural parameters such as side-chain length and grafting density. Within a Flory–Rehner-based thermodynamic framework, this model captures the coupling between swelling, deformation, and fluid transport, and is used to study the mechanical response of brush gels under tension, compression, shear, and drying.

Building on this foundation, I will discuss an extension to thermodynamically consistent poro-viscoelasticity, where intrinsic viscoelasticity of the polymer network is incorporated to describe rate-dependent deformation and stress relaxation. Finally, I will show how poroelasticity can be coupled with mechanically driven phase-transition theory to model gravity-driven collapse in fibrous gels. This framework captures the coexistence of rarefied and densified phases and the propagation of a collapse front under gravitational loading, with both analytical and numerical solutions. Together, these models provide a unified continuum perspective for understanding complex mechanical behavior in hydrogels across different loading conditions, time scales, and physical regimes.