A Model for Total Energy of Nematic Elastomers with Non-uniform Prolate Spheroids
نویسندگان
چکیده
We provide a model for the total energy of nematic liquid crystal elastomers whose elastic solid backbones have an average shape of non-uniform prolate spheroids along the director of crosslinked liquid crystalline molecules. This energy is a generalization of the Oseen-Frank free energy for nematic liquid crystals, but incorporates coherently the elastic deformation with changes in the shape and the director of the network. The total free energy we obtain for the elastomer is suitable for the existence of energy minimizers and other mathematical studies of the elastomers and also provides a concrete example that is consistent with both the continuum mechanics theory and the molecular-statistical theory.
منابع مشابه
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