The interaction between mechanical and orientational deformations of anisotropic elastomers

Anisotropic elastomers have great potential for application in next-generation technologies (such as soft robotics and modern biomedical devices) due to the unique mechanical properties based on the coupling between the director, which describes the macroscopic orientation of mesogens, and the polymer network. Despite a large number of theoretical and experimental studies, there is still no general theory that completely describes the anisotropy and nonlinearity of the mechanical properties of this type of elastomers. General approach for the study of mechanical properties of anisotropic elastomers will be proposed in this project. The free energy will be obtained, describing mechanical and orientational deformations and their interaction. The effect of mechanical deformation on the orientation of molecules and the effect of reorientation of molecules on mechanical deformation will be studied theoretically. Interesting phenomena observed in experiments due to mechanical-orientational interaction will be explained. An experimental method for direct measurement of the free energy coefficients will be developed, which will allow conducting a comparative study of theoretical studies and experimental results.