A NONLINEAR CONSTITUTIVE MODEL FOR NEMATIC GELS

摘要：

Nematic gels are materials that combine the properties of conventional gels and liquid crystals.Compared with conventional gels,nematic gels exhibit more interesting properties due to their liquid-crystalline behaviors.For example,nematic gels may deform spontaneously in response to external field,enabling them to be ideal materials for actuators and sensors.In this paper,we developed a constitutive theory of nematic gels based on free energy minimization.With the resulting theory,we modeled a miniaturized cylindrical actuator made of nematic gels and showed that the cylindrical nematic gel actuator would undergo a substantial elongation along its longitudinal direction in response to a cooling environment.

关键词： nematic gel free energy minimization thermal actuation

作者: Z.Wu Z.Zhong

作者单位: School of Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mechanics,Tongji University,Shanghai 200092,China

会议类型: 国际会议

会议名称: The Third International Conference on Heterogeneous Material Mechanics(第三届国际非均匀材料力学会议)

会议地点: 上海

会议语种:英文

页码: 1007-1014

在线出版日期: 2011-05-22（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）