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Multiscale Computational Model of Soft Elasticity and Director Reorientation in Nematic Gels

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Antonio DeSimone
Antonio DeSimone*
Affiliation:
International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Via Beirut 2–4, 34014 Trieste, Italy
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Abstract

A coarse-grained model of soft elasticity of nematic elastomers is presented, in which fine-scale spatial oscillations are carefully accounted for in the definition of an effective energy density, and then averaged out from the kinematics. Algorithmically, this amounts to taking a suitable convex envelope of the original free-energy of the system. The resulting finite element simulations of stretching experiments on thin sheets of nematic elastomers enable us to resolve simultaneously the macroscopic mechanical response (e.g., deformed shape, stress-strain curves) and the underlying microscopic mechanisms (e.g., evolution of domain structures, local reorientation of the nematic director).

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 785: Symposium D – Materials and Devices for Smart Systems , 2003 , D3.4
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2004

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References

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