Spontaneous thermal expansion of nematic elastomers

Details Spontaneous thermal expansion of nematic elastomers Spontaneous thermal expansion of nematic elastomers

2001-06-07

arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0106138v3

Physics

Condensed Matter

Soft Condensed Matter

Scientific paper

10.1007/s101890170020

We study the monodomain (single-crystal) nematic elastomer materials, all side-chain siloxane polymers with the same mesogenic groups and crosslinking density, but differing in the type of crosslinking. Increasing the proportion of long di-functional segments of main-chain nematic polymer, acting as network crosslinking, results in dramatic changes in the uniaxial equilibrium thermal expansion on cooling from isotropic phase. At higher concentration of main chains their behaviour dominates the elastomer properties. At low concentration of main-chain material, we detect two distinct transitions at different temperatures, one attributed to the main-chain, the other to the side-chain component. The effective uniaxial anisotropy of nematic rubber, r(T) proportional to the effective nematic order parameter Q(T), is given by the average of the two components and thus reflects the two-transition nature of thermal expansion. The experimental data is compared with the theoretical model of ideal nematic elastomers; applications in high-amplitude thermal actuators are discussed in the end.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Spontaneous thermal expansion of nematic elastomers does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Spontaneous thermal expansion of nematic elastomers, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Spontaneous thermal expansion of nematic elastomers will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-459250