Numerical Experiments for Thermally-induced Bending of Nematic Elastomers with Hybrid Alignment

L. Teresi[1], and A. DeSimone[2]
[1]LaMS - Modeling & Simulation Lab, University Roma Tre, Roma, Italy
[2]SISSA - International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy
Published in 2011

We deal with Liquid Crystal Elastomers (LCEs) having hybrid alignment (HNEs), that is, fabricated with a given non-homogeneous nematic orientation. For such a materials, permanent distortions induced by deswelling can be compensated by those resulting from cooling below the transition temperature, thus yielding the possibility of producing temperature-driven actuators.

Here, we simulate the behavior of different parallelepipedal specimens under deswelling and heating, with the goal of reproducing actual experiments. Given the amount of deswelling and the temperature, our model is able to predict the actual configuration assumed by the specimen.