Programming complex shapes in thin nematic elastomer and glass sheets

Abstract

Nematic elastomers and glasses are solids that display spontaneous distortion under external stimuli. Recent advances in the synthesis of sheets with controlled heterogeneities have enabled their actuation into non-trivial shapes with unprecedented energy density. Thus, these have emerged as powerful candidates for soft actuators. To further this potential, we introduce the key metric constraint which governs shape changing actuation in these sheets. We then highlight the richness of shapes amenable to this constraint through two broad classes of examples which we term nonisometric origami and lifted surfaces. Finally, we comment on the derivation of the metric constraint, which arises from energy minimization in the interplay of stretching, bending and heterogeneity in these sheets.

References in corpus (3)

• Blueprinting Nematic Glass: Systematically Constructing and Combining Active Points of Curvature for Emergent Morphology
• Encoding Gaussian curvature in glassy and elastomeric liquid crystal polymer networks
• Curvature generation in nematic surfaces

Cited by in corpus (16)

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• Curved geometries from planar director fields - Solving the two-dimensional inverse problem
• Origami spring-inspired shape morphing for flexible robotics
• A plate theory for nematic liquid crystalline solids
• Nematic director fields and topographies of shells of revolution
• Actuation of cylindrical nematic elastomer balloons
• Actuation of thin nematic elastomer sheets with controlled heterogeneity
• Theory of Liquid Crystal Elastomers: From Polymer Physics to Differential Geometry
• Origami and materials science
• A blend of stretching and bending in nematic polymer networks
• Inflationary routes to Gaussian curved topography
• Interfacial metric mechanics: stitching patterns of shape change in active sheets
• Ridge approximation for thin nematic polymer networks