Open AccessNematic liquid crystalline elastomers are aeolotropic materials
Author(s) -
L. Angela Mihai,
Haoran Wang,
Johann Guilleminot,
Alain Goriely
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
proceedings - royal society. mathematical, physical and engineering sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1471-2946
pISSN - 1364-5021
DOI - 10.1098/rspa.2021.0259
Subject(s) - liquid crystal , elastomer , biaxial nematic , materials science , elasticity (physics) , elastic modulus , anisotropy , coupling (piping) , moduli , infinitesimal , classical mechanics , physics , optics , mathematics , composite material , mathematical analysis , quantum mechanics , optoelectronics
Continuum models describing ideal nematic solids are widely used in theoretical studies of liquid crystal elastomers. However, experiments on nematic elastomers show a type of anisotropic response that is not predicted by the ideal models. Therefore, their description requires an additional term coupling elastic and nematic responses, to account for aeolotropic effects. In order to better understand the observed elastic response of liquid crystal elastomers, we analyse theoretically and computationally different stretch and shear deformations. We then compare the elastic moduli in the infinitesimal elastic strain limit obtained from the molecular dynamics simulations with the ones derived theoretically, and show that they are better explained by including nematic order effects within the continuum framework.