Liquid Crystal Elastomers TCM Group（液晶弹性体中药组）.pdfVIP

Liquid Crystal Elastomers M. Warner and E. M. Terentjev Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge CLARENDON PRESS . OXFORD 2006 iv PREFACE Liquid crystals are unusual materials. As their name suggests, they inhabit the grey area between liquids and solids. They have long range orientational order, typically of the unique axes of their component rod-like or plate molecules. Spatial variations of this average direction of molecular orientation are resisted by so-called curvature (Frank) elasticity. On the other hand liquid crystals can flow, albeit as anisotropic liquids. Polymers too are unusual materials. Above the glass transition, the physics is mostly dominated by the high entropy inherent in the disorder of their component long chain molecules. Resistance to molecular shape change arises mostly from the imperative to maintain high entropy. Viscoelastic flow and rubber elasticity are macroscopic manifest- ations of this principle. Thus rubber, where the long molecules are linked together, also inhabits the grey region between liquids and solids. Though nominally a solid, rubber is capable of very high deformations, greater than any other type of solid. Its internal mo- lecular motion is rapid, as in a liquid, with the resulting amorphous solid being highly extensible rather than glassy. If it were not for the few crosslinks holding the chains into a percolating network, rubber would flow under stress, as ordinary polymers and other liquids do. The bulk (compression) modulus of typical rubber is of the same order as that of all liquids, and solids, but the shear modulus is about 10−4 − 10−5 times smaller. Thus rubber essentially deforms as a liquid, that is by shearing at constant volume. It is a weak solid and therein lies its enormous technological importance. This book is concerned about the phenomena arising when the