Related papers: Modeling Defects, Shape Evolution, and Programmed …
Liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) has been intensively utilized in 4D printing techniques to fabricate smart structures with reversible actuation on the basis of appropriate alignment of liquid crystal (LC) molecules. As a non-contact…
We present an elastic simulator for domains defined as evolving implicit functions, which is efficient, robust, and differentiable with respect to both shape and material. This simulator is motivated by applications in 3D reconstruction: it…
Nematic elastomers are a particular class of liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) that exhibit both liquid-crystalline order and rubber (entropic) elasticity. This combination makes them stimuli-responsive soft materials with a number of…
Most, but not all, liquid crystals tend to align when subject to shear flow, while most nematic polymeric liquid crystals undergo a tumbling instability, where the director rotate with the flow. The reasons of this instability remain…
Natural organisms utilize distributed actuation through their musculoskeletal systems to adapt their gait for traversing diverse terrains or to morph their bodies for varied tasks. A longstanding challenge in robotics is to emulate this…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) marry the large deformation response of a cross-linked polymer network with the nematic order of liquid crystals pendent to the network. Of particular interest is the actuation of LCE sheets where the…
The development of accurate constitutive models for materials that undergo path-dependent processes continues to be a complex challenge in computational solid mechanics. Challenges arise both in considering the appropriate model assumptions…
The dynamics of cellular pattern formation is crucial for understanding embryonic development and tissue morphogenesis. Recent studies have shown that human dermal fibroblasts cultured on liquid crystal elastomers can exhibit an increase in…
Disclinations lines play a key role in many physical processes, from the fracture of materials to the formation of the early universe. Achieving versatile control over disclinations is key to developing novel electro-optical devices,…
The topological properties of many materials are central to their behavior, with the dynamics of topological defects being particularly important to intrinsically out-of-equilibrium, active materials. In this paper, local manipulation of…
This paper investigates nematic liquid crystals in three-dimensional curved space, and determines which director deformation modes are compatible with each possible type of non-Euclidean geometry. Previous work by Sethna et al. showed that…
We propose a simple microscopic model of molecular dynamics simulation to study orientational glass in three dimensions. We present simulation results for mixtures of mildly anisotropic particles and spherical impurities. We realize fcc…
Elastomers filled with liquid inclusions -- as opposed to conventional solid fillers -- are a recent trend in the soft matter community because of their unique range of mechanical and physical properties. Such properties stem, in part, from…
Soft matter systems are common in nature and make up nearly all the essential components necessary for life, from cells to the organelles within those cells. The ability of these soft materials to deform is crucial for the proper…
Commonly used linear and nonlinear constitutive material models in deformation simulation contain many simplifications and only cover a tiny part of possible material behavior. In this work we propose a framework for learning customized…
Nonlinear elastic metamaterials are known to support a variety of dynamic phenomena that enhance our capacity to manipulate elastic waves. Since these properties stem from complex, subwavelength geometry, full-scale dynamic simulations are…
In crystals, molecules thermally vibrate around the periodic lattice sites. Vibrational motions are well understood in terms of phonons, which carry heat and control heat transport. The situation is notably different in disordered solids,…
The blue phases are observed in highly chiral liquid crystalline compositions that nascently organize into a three-dimensional, crystalline nanostructure. The periodicity of the unit cell lattice parameters is on the order of the wavelength…
Stability is an important and fruitful avenue of research for liquid crystal elastomers. At constant temperature, upon stretching, the homogeneous state of a nematic body becomes unstable, and alternating shear stripes develop at very low…
When a nematic liquid crystal (LC) is confined on a self-closing spherical shell, topological constraints arise with intriguing consequences that depend critically on how the LC is aligned in the shell. We demonstrate reversible dynamic…