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Thermal morphing of inflatable liquid crystal elastomer domes with kirigami-enabled programmability.

Mengqi He1, Weicong Zhang1, Xiangren Kong1

  • 1State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China. jqian@zju.edu.cn.

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Researchers developed kirigami-patterned inflatable domes using liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs). These structures exhibit large, reversible shape changes in response to thermal stimuli, offering a new platform for soft actuators.

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Area of Science:

  • Soft Matter Physics
  • Materials Science
  • Mechanical Engineering

Background:

  • Kirigami, the art of paper cutting, offers a method to program deformation in soft active materials.
  • Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are stimuli-responsive materials that couple liquid crystalline order with elastic deformation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To create thermally responsive inflatable domes using kirigami-patterned LCEs.
  • To investigate the influence of kirigami design and inflation pressure on dome morphing and mechanical properties.

Main Methods:

  • Fabrication of planar LCE membranes with various kirigami patterns (straight line, triangular, quadrilateral, hexagonal).
  • Pneumatic inflation of the patterned membranes to form 3D domes.
  • Systematic variation of kirigami geometry and inflation pressure to study deformation modes, height, and stiffness.

Main Results:

  • Kirigami patterns enabled large, reversible shape morphing of LCE domes under thermal stimuli.
  • Introduced cuts disrupted biaxial stress, promoting heterogeneous strain and influencing mesogen alignment.
  • Cut geometry and inflation pressure significantly regulated dome height, deformation mode, and mechanical stiffness.

Conclusions:

  • Kirigami-patterned LCE domes provide a scalable platform for high-performance soft actuators, adaptive surfaces, and morphing structures.
  • Rational kirigami designs allow for simultaneous achievement of large and programmable shape morphing.