Related papers: From Vulcanization to Isotropic and Nematic Rubber…
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…
Polymer entanglements lead to complicated topological constraints and interactions between neighbouring chains in a dense solution or melt. Entanglements can be treated in a mean field approach, within the famous reptation model, since they…
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…
Instabilities in thin elastic sheets, such as wrinkles, are of broad interest both from a fundamental viewpoint and also because of their potential for engineering applications. Nematic liquid crystal elastomers offer a new form of control…
In many interesting physical settings, such as the vulcanization of rubber, the introduction of permanent random constraints between the constituents of a homogeneous fluid can cause a phase transition to a random solid state. In this…
The aim of this paper is to present a modeling for the rheological behavior of simple liquids as a function of the amplitude of the imposed shear stress or strain. The elastic mode theory (Ref. 6) is first generalized to take into account…
Classical network elasticity theories are based on the concept of flexible volumeless polymers fixed into a network in which there are no excluded volume, or even topological interactions, and where the chains explore accessible…
Some recent analytical papers have explored limiting behaviors of Landau-deGennes models for liquid crystals in certain extreme ranges of the model parameters: limits of "vanishing elasticity" (in the language of some of these papers) and…
We develop a Landau theory for bend flexoelectricity in liquid crystals of bent-core molecules. In the nematic phase of the model, the bend flexoelectric coefficient increases as we reduce the temperature toward the nematic to polar phase…
We address the statistical mechanics of randomly and permanently crosslinked networks. We develop a theoretical framework (vulcanization theory) which can be used to systematically analyze the correlation between the statistical properties…
Motivated by the need for new materials and green energy production and conversion processes, a class of mathematical models for liquid crystal elastomers integrated within a theoretical charge pump electrical circuit is considered. The…
The twist-bend nematic phase, $N_{\rm TB}$, may be viewed as a heliconical molecular arrangement in which the director $\bf n$ precesses uniformly about an extra director field, $\bf t$. It corresponds to a nematic ground state exhibiting…
The transformation theory of optics and acoustics is developed for the equations of linear anisotropic elasticity. The transformed equations correspond to non-unique material properties that can be varied for a given transformation by…
We review the recently proposed elastic approach to glass transition. This approach is based on a simple and a physically transparent idea of elastic interactions between local relaxation events in a liquid. Central to this picture is the…
The classical theory of rubber elasticity fails in the regime of large deformation. The un- derlying physical mechanism has been under debate for long time. In this work, we test the recently proposed mechanism of thermal elastic…
We put forward a hydrodynamic theory of nematic liquid crystals that includes both anisotropic elasticity and dynamic relaxation. Liquid remodeling is encompassed through a continuous update of the shear-stress free configuration. The…
The modern theory of elasticity and the first law of thermodynamics are cornerstones of engineering science that share the concept of reversibility. Engineering researchers have known for four decades that the modern theory violates the…
We initiate the development of a theory of the elasticity of nanoscale objects based upon new physical concepts which remain properly defined on the nanoscale. This theory provides a powerful way of understanding nanoscale elasticity in…
We introduce a class of continuum mechanical models aimed at describing the behaviour of viscoelastic fluids by incorporating concepts originated in the theory of solid plasticity. Within this class, even a simple model with constant…
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…