https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2009-10467-9
Regular Article
Elastic energies for nematic elastomers
1
SISSA-International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy
2
LaMS-Modeling & Simulation Lab, Università Roma Tre, Roma, Italy
* e-mail: desimone@sissa.it
Received:
10
February
2009
Revised:
15
April
2009
Accepted:
4
May
2009
Published online:
17
June
2009
We discuss several elastic energies for nematic elastomers and their small strain expansions both in the regime of large director rotations, and in the case that director changes are small. We propose two fully non-linear model anisotropic energies and compare the behavior they predict with the currently available experimental evidence.
PACS: 61.30.-v Liquid crystals – / 61.30.Dk Continuum models and theories of liquid crystal structure – / 62.20.-x Mechanical properties of solids – / 64.70.M- Transitions in liquid crystals –
© EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2009
