Gimenez-Pinto Vianney, Ye Fangfu
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100190 China
Department of Chemical Engineering, Columbia University USA.
RSC Adv. 2019 Mar 18;9(16):8994-9000. doi: 10.1039/c8ra09375j. eCollection 2019 Mar 15.
Liquid crystal polymer networks have demonstrated a rich variety of actuation behavior and stimulus-responsive properties. Actuation in these single-phase materials is given by spatial variations in their liquid crystal director microstructure in balanced coexistence with rubber elasticity. However, experimental studies have shown that complex actuation in elastomeric materials can also be engineered by combining well-defined isotropic regions along with liquid crystalline ordered regions. finite element elastodynamics simulations, we investigate the actuation behavior of these dual-phase nematic elastomer ribbons based on several key design factors: director orientation, pattern orientation, as well as domain and sample size. We demonstrate the variety of shapes that these materials can exhibit, including twisting, bending, accordion folding, and hybrid flat-helix states. Overall, our simulations show an exceptional agreement with experimental observations, providing light for the further development of soft stimulus-responsive materials with complex microstructures.
液晶聚合物网络已展现出丰富多样的驱动行为和刺激响应特性。这些单相材料中的驱动是由其液晶指向矢微观结构的空间变化与橡胶弹性平衡共存所导致的。然而，实验研究表明，通过将明确的各向同性区域与液晶有序区域相结合，也可以设计出弹性体材料中的复杂驱动。通过有限元弹性动力学模拟，我们基于几个关键设计因素研究了这些双相向列弹性体带的驱动行为：指向矢取向、图案取向以及畴和样品尺寸。我们展示了这些材料可以呈现的各种形状，包括扭曲、弯曲、手风琴折叠和混合平面螺旋状态。总体而言，我们的模拟结果与实验观察结果高度吻合，为具有复杂微观结构的软刺激响应材料的进一步发展提供了启示。
