Related papers: Training and re-training liquid crystal elastomer …
Elastic metamaterials are often designed for a single permanent function. We explore the possibility of altering a material's function repeatedly through a self-organization, "training" process, controlled by applied strains. We show that…
The elastic behavior of materials operating in the linear regime is constrained, by definition, to operations that are linear in the imposed deformation. Though the nonlinear regime holds promise for new functionality, the design in this…
Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) are shape-changing materials that exhibit large deformations in response to applied stimuli. Local control of the orientation of LCEs spatially directs the deformation of these materials to realize…
Modeling liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) at the molecular level is crucial for the predictable design of energy-conversion and stimuli-responsive materials. Here, we develop a self-consistent field theory for LCEs which captures the…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are a stimuli-responsive material which has been intensively studied for applications including artificial muscles, shape morphing structures, and soft robotics, due to its capability of large, programmable,…
Lattice-based mechanical metamaterials are known to exhibit quite a unique mechanical behavior owing to their rational internal architecture. This includes unusual properties such as a negative Poisson's ratio, which can be easily tuned in…
Biological systems offer a great many examples of how sophisticated, highly adapted behavior can emerge from training. Here we discuss how training might be used to impart similarly adaptive properties in physical matter. As a special form…
Multifunctional lattice materials are of great interest to modern engineering including aerospace, robotics, wave control, and sensing. In this work, we proposed and developed a new class of functional lattice materials called liquid metal…
Liquid metals (LM) are embedded in an elastomer matrix to obtain soft composites with unique thermal, dielectric, and mechanical properties. They have applications in soft robotics, biomedical engineering, and wearable electronics. By…
Architected materials that exploit buckling instabilities to reversibly trap energy have been shown to be effective for impact protection. The energy-absorbing capabilities of these architected materials can be enhanced further by…
Recent theoretical work suggests that systematic pruning of disordered networks consisting of nodes connected by springs can lead to materials that exhibit a host of unusual mechanical properties. In particular, global properties such as…
Trainable activation functions, whose parameters are optimized alongside network weights, offer increased expressivity compared to fixed activation functions. Specifically, trainable activation functions defined as ratios of polynomials…
Stimuli-responsive liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) with a strong coupling of orientational molecular order and rubber-like elasticity, show a great potential as working elements in soft robotics, sensing, transport and propulsion systems.…
Typically, loss functions, regularization mechanisms and other important aspects of training parametric models are chosen heuristically from a limited set of options. In this paper, we take the first step towards automating this process,…
Liquid Crystal Elastomers (LCEs) are an exciting category of material that has tremendous application potential across a variety of fields, owing to their unique properties that enable both sensing and actuation. To some, LCEs are simply…
Evolution in time-varying environments naturally leads to adaptable biological systems that can easily switch functionalities. Advances in the synthesis of environmentally-responsive materials therefore open up the possibility of creating a…
Long range order and symmetry in heterogeneous materials architected on crystal lattices lead to elastic and inelastic anisotropies and thus limit mechanical functionalities in particular crystallographic directions. Here, we present a…
We propose that ballooning can be controlled, enriched and amplified by using rubbery networks of aligned molecular rods known as liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs). Firstly, LCEs are promising artificial muscles, showing large spontaneous…
Cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers (CLCEs) change color under strain, offering attractive prospects for smart textiles, soft robotics, and photonic devices. However, the helical structure of CLCEs averages out the exceptional anisotropy…
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…