Soft elastic response of stretched sheets of nematic elastomers: A numerical study (Q1612670): Difference between revisions

Stretching experiments on sheets of nematic elastomers have revealed soft deformation modes and formation of microstructure in parts of the sample. Both phenomena are manifestations of the existence of a symmetry-breaking phase transformation from a random isotropic phase to an aligned, nematic phase. The microscopic energy proposed by \textit{Bladon} et. al [Phys. Rev. E 47, R 3838 ff (1993)] to model this transition delivers a continuum of symmetry-related zero-energy states, which can be combined in different ways to achieve a variety of zero-energy macroscopic deformations. The microscopic energy is replaced with a macroscopic effective energy, the so-called quasiconvexification. This procedure yields a coarse-grained description of the physics of the system with (energetically optimal) fine-scale oscillations of state variables correctly accounted for in energetics, but averaged out in kinematics. The quasiconvexification can be efficiently computed with finite elements in order to simulate numerically stretching experiments. The numerical experiments show that, up to a critical geometry-dependent stretch, no reaction force arises. At larger stretches a force is transmitted through parts of the sheet and, although fine phase mixtures disappear from most of the sample, microstructures survive in some pockets. A computation of the microstructure resolves the local orientation of nematic director.