Related papers: Discontinuous metric programming in liquid crystal…
Liquid crystal networks exploit the coupling between the responsivity of liquid-crystalline mesogens, e.g., to electric fields, and the (visco)elastic properties of a polymer network. Because of this, these materials have been put forward…
Continuum-scale material deformation models, such as crystal plasticity, can significantly enhance their predictive accuracy by incorporating input from lower-scale (i.e., mesoscale) models. The procedure to generate and extract the…
Azo-dye-doped liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are known to show a strong photomechanical response. We report on experiments that suggest that photothermal heating is the underlying mechanism in surface-constrained geometry. In particular,…
Liquid crystal elastomers are rubber-like solids with liquid crystalline mesogens (stiff, rod-like molecules) incorporated either into the main chain or as a side chain of the polymer. These solids display a range of unusual…
We derive a multiphysics model that accounts for network elasticity with spontaneous strains, swelling and nematic interactions in liquid crystal gels (LCGs). We discuss the coupling among the various physical mechanisms, with particular…
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…
We model within the framework of finite elasticity two inherent instabilities observed in liquid crystal elastomers under uniaxial tension. First is necking which occurs when a material sample suddenly elongates more in a small region where…
High-dimensional observations and unknown dynamics are major challenges when applying optimal control to many real-world decision making tasks. The Learning Controllable Embedding (LCE) framework addresses these challenges by embedding the…
Materials exhibiting a large caloric effect could lead to the development of new generation of heat-management technologies that will have better energy efficiency and be potentially more environmentally friendly. The focus of caloric…
Nematic elastomers and glasses are solids that display spontaneous distortion under external stimuli. Recent advances in the synthesis of sheets with controlled heterogeneities have enabled their actuation into non-trivial shapes with…
The mechanisms of void growth and coalescence are key contributors to the ductile failure of crystalline materials. At the grain scale, single crystal plastic anisotropy induces large strain localization leading to complex shape evolutions.…
A rectangular plate of dielectric elastomer exhibiting gradients of material properties through its thickness will deform inhomogeneously when a potential difference is applied to compliant electrodes on its major surfaces, because each…
Soft-elasticity in monodomain liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) is promising for impact-absorbing applications where strain energy is ideally absorbed at constant stress. Conventionally, compressive and impact studies on LCEs have not been…
We present a novel, physically-based morphing technique for elastic shapes, leveraging the differentiable material point method (MPM) with space-time control through per-particle deformation gradients to accommodate complex topology…
The elastic response of the crystalline sheet to the stretching deformation in the form of wrinkles has been extensively investigated. In this work, we extend this fundamental scientific question to the plastic regime by exploring the…
Liquid crystal elastomers are rubbery solids that couple liquid crystalline order and deformation. This coupling leads to properties that are attractive for a number of applications in soft robotics and energy absorption. This paper is…
The ability to manipulate polar entities with multiple external fields opens exciting possibilities for emerging functionalities and novel applications in spin systems, photonics, metamaterials, and soft matter. Liquid crystals (LCs),…
The geometry of two-dimensional crystalline membranes dictates their mechanical, electronic and chemical properties. The local geometry of a surface is determined from the two invariants of the metric and the curvature tensors. Here we…
We present an analytical model to investigate the mechanics of 2-dimensional lattices composed of elastic beams of non-uniform cross-section. Our approach is based on reducing a lattice to a single beam subject to the action of a set of…
Randomly crumpled sheets have shape memory. In order to understand the basis of this form of memory, we simulate triangular lattices of springs whose lengths are altered to create a topography with multiple potential energy minima. We then…