Jove
Visualize
Contact Us

Related Experiment Videos

Incompatible strains associated with defects in nematic elastomers.

Eliot Fried1, Shaun Sellers

  • 1Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Washington University in Saint Louis, Saint Louis, Missouri 63130-4899, USA. efried@me.wustl.edu

The Journal of Chemical Physics
|January 21, 2006
PubMed
Summary

Nematic elastomers exhibit incompatible network strains when standard nematic textures form. This incompatibility, measured by the Riemann curvature tensor, suggests limitations in current neoclassical and Frank energy models for these materials.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Structural stability and thermodynamics of artistic composition.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2024
Same author

Marangoni spreading on liquid substrates in new media art.

PNAS nexus·2024
Same author

Modelling of surface reactions and diffusion mediated by bulk diffusion.

Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences·2023
Same author

Early stages of polycrystalline diamond deposition: laser reflectance at substrates with growing nanodiamonds.

Nanoscale advances·2023
Same author

Reply to the comment of van der Heijden and Starostin.

Proceedings. Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences·2022
Same author

Bridging the gap between rectifying developables and tangent developables: a family of developable surfaces associated with a space curve.

Proceedings. Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences·2022
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Area of Science:

  • Materials Science
  • Polymer Physics
  • Soft Matter Physics

Background:

  • Nematic elastomers couple polymer network deformation with mesogenic group orientational order.
  • The neoclassical free energy model describes this coupling using statistical arguments.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the compatibility of network strains in nematic elastomers using established theoretical models.
  • To determine if the neoclassical free energy model, combined with Frank energy, accurately predicts strain behavior in standard nematic textures.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of network strain compatibility using the Riemann curvature tensor.
  • Theoretical modeling of radial hedgehog defects and escaped disclinations in cylindrical geometries.

Main Results:

Related Experiment Videos

  • The neoclassical model with Frank energy predicts incompatible network strains for standard nematic textures.
  • A non-zero Riemann curvature tensor was found for radial hedgehog defects and escaped disclinations, indicating incompatibility.
  • Conventional nonlinearly elastic solids do not exhibit similar strain incompatibilities.

Conclusions:

  • The neoclassical free energy model, when combined with Frank energy, is insufficient for describing compatible network strains in nematic elastomers.
  • Achieving compatibility requires either more complex nematic textures or a more sophisticated free-energy density expression.