The hydrophobic recovery of polydimethylsiloxane elastomers was studied after exposure to partial electrical discharge. Silicone elastomers that were thoroughly extracted of free oligomeric impurities as well as those deliberately contaminated with low molecular weight (LMW) silicone fluids were used for these studies. Contact angle and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed that the recover...

Typical bilayer wrinkle systems employ soft elastomers as the substrates. In contrast, shape memory polymers have recently emerged as attractive alternatives. Besides the shape fixing capability, shape memory polymers distinguish from elastomers in that they are rigid at room temperature, but experience significant modulus drop upon heating. We hereby report unique aspects of shape memory polym...

Elastomers play an irreplaceable role in our society due to their unique properties. Natural rubber is directly obtained from plants and widely used tires, shoes, etc. Recently, modified natural rubbers are proposed expand the application of rubber. However, these have a limited variety molecular structures may not be able meet ever-demanding applications. Traditional synthetic elastomers prope...

We study the low-frequency, long-wavelength dynamics of liquid crystal elastomers, crosslinked in the smectic-A phase, in their smectic-A, biaxial smectic and smectic-C phases. Two different yet related formulations are employed. One formulation describes the pure hydrodynamics and does not explicitly involve the Frank director, which relaxes to its local equilibrium value in a nonhydrodynamic ...

Inspired by mammalian skins, soft hybrids integrating the merits of elastomers and hydrogels have potential applications in diverse areas including stretchable and bio-integrated electronics, microfluidics, tissue engineering, soft robotics and biomedical devices. However, existing hydrogel-elastomer hybrids have limitations such as weak interfacial bonding, low robustness and difficulties in p...

Importance of intermolecular forces (interactions of molecular chains) in the characteristic mechanical behavior of elastomers is studied. To focus on the microstructure of sulfur vulcanized rubbers, different network structures of NR/SBR elastomeric blends are investigated. The main difference of these structures comes from the ratio of sulfur to accelerator content in the curing systems. This...

There have been a wide variety of efforts to develop conductive elastomers that satisfy both mechanical stretchability and electrical conductivity, as a response to growing demands on stretchable and wearable devices. This article reviews the important progress in conductive elastomers made in three application fields of stretchable technology: stretchable electronics, stretchable sensors, and ...

In most synthetic elastomers, changing the physical properties by monomer choice also results in a change to the crystallinity of the material, which manifests through alteration of its mechanical performance. Using organocatalyzed stereospecific additions of thiols to activated alkynes, high-molar-mass elastomers were isolated via step-growth polymerization. The resulting controllable double-b...