Liquid crystal elastomer strips as soft crawlers

DOI10.1016/J.JMPS.2015.07.017MaRDI QIDQ2670205zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Paolo Gidoni, Giovanni Noselli, Antonio DeSimone

Publication date 10 March 2022

Published in Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.02368

zbMATH Keywords

crawling motilitydirectional surfacesfrictional interactionsliquid crystal elastomerssoft biomimetic robots

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Friction in solid mechanics (74M10) Liquid crystals (76A15)

Abstract: In this paper, we speculate on a possible application of Liquid Crystal Elastomers to the field of soft robotics. In particular, we study a concept for limbless locomotion that is amenable to miniaturisation. For this purpose, we formulate and solve the evolution equations for a strip of nematic elastomer, subject to directional frictional interactions with a flat solid substrate, and cyclically actuated by a spatially uniform, time-periodic stimulus (e.g., temperature change). The presence of frictional forces that are sensitive to the direction of sliding transforms reciprocal, 'breathing-like' deformations into directed forward motion. We derive formulas quantifying this motion in the case of distributed friction, by solving a differential inclusion for the displacement field. The simpler case of concentrated frictional interactions at the two ends of the strip is also solved, in order to provide a benchmark to compare the continuously distributed case with a finite-dimensional benchmark. We also provide explicit formulas for the axial force along the crawler body.

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Cited in

(10)

• Stasis domains and slip surfaces in the locomotion of a bio-inspired two-segment crawler
• On the optimal control of rate-independent soft crawlers
• Averaging of time-periodic dissipation potentials in rate-independent processes
• Partial constraint singularities in elastic rods
• Limit cycles for dynamic crawling locomotors with periodic prescribed shape
• Cell Motility and Locomotion by Shape Control
• Effects of director rotation relaxation on viscoelastic wave dispersion in nematic elastomer beams
• Gamma-convergence results for nematic elastomer bilayers: relaxation and actuation
• On a consistent finite-strain plate model of nematic liquid crystal elastomers
• A plate theory for nematic liquid crystalline solids

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