635 research outputs found
Growth and Shape of a Chain Fountain
If a long chain is held in a pot elevated a distance h_1 above the floor, and
the end of the chain is then dragged over the rim of the pot and released, the
chain flows under gravity down into a pile on the floor. Not only does the
chain flow out of the pot, it also leaps above the pot in a "chain-fountain". I
predict and observe that if the pot is held at an angle to the vertical the
steady state shape of the fountain is an inverted catenary, and discuss how to
apply boundary conditions to this solution. In the case of a level pot, the
fountain shape is completely vertical. In this case I predict and observe both
how fast the fountain grows to its steady state hight, and how it grows
quadratically in time if there is no floor. The fountain is driven by an
anomalous push force from the pot that acts on the link of chain about to come
into motion. I confirm this by designing two new chains, one consisting of
hollow cylinders threaded on a string and one consisting of heavy beads
separated by long flexible threads. The former is predicted to produce a
pot-push and hence a fountain, while the latter will not. I confirm these
predictions experimentally. Finally I directly observe the anomalous push in a
horizontal chain-pick up experiment.Comment: 6 pages 7 figures and one movi
Characterization of soft stripe-domain deformations in Sm-C and Sm-C* liquid-crystal elastomers
The neoclassical model of Sm-C (and Sm-C*) elastomers developed by Warner and Adams predicts a class of “soft” (zero energy) deformations. We find and describe the full set of stripe domains—laminate structures in which the laminates alternate between two different deformations—that can form between pairs of these soft deformations. All the stripe domains fall into two classes, one in which the smectic layers are not bent at the interfaces, but for which—in the Sm-C* case—the interfaces are charged, and one in which the smectic layers are bent but the interfaces are never charged. Striped deformations significantly enhance the softness of the macroscopic elastic response
Exactly isochoric deformations of soft solids
Many materials of contemporary interest, such as gels, biological tissues and
elastomers, are easily deformed but essentially incompressible. Traditional
linear theory of elasticity implements incompressibility only to first order
and thus permits some volume changes, which become problematically large even
at very small strains. Using a mixed coordinate transformation originally due
to Gauss, we enforce the constraint of isochoric deformations exactly to
develop a linear theory with perfect volume conservation that remains valid
until strains become geometrically large. We demonstrate the utility of this
approach by calculating the response of an infinite soft isochoric solid to a
point force that leads to a nonlinear generalization of the Kelvin solution.
Our approach naturally generalizes to a range of problems involving
deformations of soft solids and interfaces in 2 dimensional and axisymmetric
geometries, which we exemplify by determining the solution to a distributed
load that mimics muscular contraction within the bulk of a soft solid
Elasticity of Polydomain Liquid Crystal Elastomers
We model polydomain liquid-crystal elastomers by extending the neo-classical
soft and semi-soft free energies used successfully to describe monodomain
samples. We show that there is a significant difference between polydomains
cross-linked in homogeneous high symmetry states then cooled to low symmetry
polydomain states and those cross-linked directly in the low symmetry
polydomain state. For example, elastomers cross-linked in the isotropic state
then cooled to a nematic polydomain will, in the ideal limit, be perfectly
soft, and with the introduction of non-ideality, will deform at very low stress
until they are macroscopically aligned. The director patterns observed in them
will be disordered, characteristic of combinations of random deformations, and
not disclination patterns. We expect these samples to exhibit elasticity
significantly softer than monodomain samples. Polydomains cross-linked in the
nematic polydomain state will be mechanically harder and contain characteristic
schlieren director patterns. The models we use for polydomain elastomers are
spatially heterogeneous, so rather than solving them exactly we elucidate this
behavior by bounding the energies using Taylor-like (compatible test strain
fields) and Sachs (constant stress) limits extended to non-linear elasticity.
Good agreement is found with experiments that reveal the supersoft response of
some polydomains. We also analyze smectic polydomain elastomers and propose
that polydomain SmC* elastomers cross-linked in the SmA monodomain state are
promising candidates for low field electrical actuation.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figure
Supersoft elasticity in polydomain nematic elastomers
We consider the equilibrium stress-strain behavior of polydomain liquid crystal elastomers (PLCEs). We show that there is a fundamental difference between PLCEs cross-linked in the high temperature isotropic and low temperature aligned states. PLCEs cross-linked in the isotropic state then cooled to an aligned state will exhibit extremely soft elasticity (confirmed by recent experiments) and ordered director patterns characteristic of textured deformations. PLCEs cross-linked in the aligned state will be mechanically much harder and characterized by disclination textures
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