Related papers: Hard-needle elastomer in one spatial dimension
Liquid crystals in two dimensions undergo a first-order isotropic-to-quasi-nematic transition, provided the particle interactions are sufficiently ``sharp and narrow''. This implies phase coexistence between isotropic and quasi-nematic…
I put forward a continuum theory for active nematic gels, defined as fluids or suspensions of orientable rodlike objects endowed with active dynamics, that is based on symmetry arguments and compatibility with thermodynamics. The starting…
We propose a lattice statistical model to investigate the phase diagrams and the soft responses of nematic liquid-crystal elastomers. Using suitably scaled infinite-range interactions, we obtain exact self-consistent equations for the…
In vivo and in vitro systems of cells and extra-cellular matrix (ECM) systems are well known to form ordered patterns of orientationally aligned fibers. Here, we interpret them as active analogs of the (disordered) isotropic to the…
In the context of finite elasticity, we propose plate models describing the spontaneous bending of nematic elastomer thin films due to variations along the thickness of the nematic order parameters. Reduced energy functionals are deduced…
We study the anomalous elasticity of nematic elastomers by employing the powers of renormalized field theory. Using general arguments of symmetry and relevance, we introduce a minimal Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson elastic energy for nematic…
Polydomain liquid crystalline (nematic) elastomers have highly unusual mechanical properties, dominated by the dramatically non-linear stress-strain response that reflects stress-induced evolution of domain patterns. Here, we study the…
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…
In this work we propose and analyze a novel Hybrid High-Order discretization of a class of (linear and) nonlinear elasticity models in the small deformation regime which are of common use in solid mechanics. The proposed method is valid in…
We study the flat phase of nematic elastomer membranes with rotational symmetry spontaneously broken by in-plane nematic order. Such state is characterized by a vanishing elastic modulus for simple shear and soft transverse phonons. At…
We investigate numerically the yielding transition of a two dimensional model amorphous solid under external shear. We use a scalar model in terms of values of the total local strain, that we derive from the full (tensorial) description of…
This paper formally analyses effects of nematic weak elasticity using the five parametric de Gennes (DG) potential. The analysis is trivialized in a specific (local) Cartesian coordinate system whose one axis is directed along the initial…
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…
Liquid crystal elastomers present a rich combination of effects associated with orientational symmetry breaking and the underlying rubber elasticity. In this work we focus on the effect of the network on the nematic--smectic-{\sl A}…
We develop a molecular model of non-uniform deformations within the framework of liquid crystal rubber elasticity. We show that, similarly to the uniform case, the theory is not sensitive to the molecular details of polymer liquid crystal…
We study elasticity of spontaneously orientationally-ordered amorphous solids, characterized by a vanishing transverse shear modulus, as realized for example by nematic elastomers and gels. We show that local heterogeneities and elastic…
The goal of this work is to rigorously study the zero inertia limit for the Q-tensor model of liquid crystals. Though present in the original derivation of the Ericksen-Leslie equations for nematic liquid crystals, the inertia term of the…
We develop a continuum theory of linear viscoelastic response in oriented monodomain nematic elastomers. The expression for dissipation function is analogous to the Leslie-Ericksen version of anisotropic nematic viscosity; we propose the…
The q-model is a random walk model used to describe the flow of stress in a stationary granular medium. Here we derive the exact horizontal and vertical correlation functions for the q-model in two dimensions. We show that close to a…
Simulations of nematic-isotropic transition of liquid crystals in two dimensions are performed using an O(2) vector model characterised by non linear nearest neighbour spin interaction governed by the fourth Legendre polynomial $P\_4$. The…