A mechanical strain field applied to a monodomain cholesteric elastomer will unwind the helical director distribution. There are similarities with the classical problem of an electric field applied to a cholesteric liquid crystal but also differences. Frank elasticity is of minor importance unless the gel is very weak. The interplay is between the director being helically anchored to the rubber...

A nematic elastomer film with a 90 o twist orientation between the top and bottom surfaces is prepared by chiral imprinting methods. The reactive achiral nematic monomers and crosslinkers are photopolymerized in the presence of a controlled amount of unreactive chiral dopant. The elastomer films possess a 90 o twist orientation even after the removal of the chiral dopant. The films exhibit an e...

The paper is devoted to a qualitative analysis of friction of elastomers from the point of view of scales contributing to the force of friction. We argue that--contrary to widespread opinion--friction between a randomly rough self-affine fractal surface and an elastomer is not a multiscale phenomenon, but is governed mostly by the interplay of only two scales--as a rule the largest and the smal...

A thin metal film vapor deposited on thick elastomer substrate develops an equi-biaxial compressive stress state when the system is cooled due to the large thermal expansion mismatch between the elastomer and the metal. At a critical stress, the film undergoes buckling into a family of modes with short wavelengths characteristic of a thin plate on a compliant elastic foundation. As the system i...

An optical micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) structure is provided. The structure includes an elastomer membrane, a plurality of polymer fibers attached to the elastomer membrane, an array of detectors operatively connected to the plurality of polymer fibers at a first end of the plurality of polymer fibers, and a microlens array operatively connected to the plurality of polymer fibers at...

The deformation of a dielectric induced by voltage is limited by electrical breakdown if the dielectric is stiff, and by electromechanical instability if the dielectric is compliant. The interplay of the two modes of instability is analyzed for a dielectric elastomer, which is compliant at a small stretch, but stiffens steeply. The theory is illustrated with recent experiments of interpenetrati...

In this paper, a new material called synthetic elastomer, is presented as means of actuation. The material displays enhanced performances in terms of electrical as well as mechanical aspects such as dielectric constant, elastic strength and stress relaxation. We begin with developing synthesis procedures for the material, which results in its general recipe with chemical composition. In additio...

Resistance of antichemical clothing primarily depends on the type of material it is made from, in particular on the type of polymer used for coating the fabric carrier. This paper reports on systematic investigations on the influence of the cross-linking density of an elastomer and the composition of a cross-linked elastomer on its resistance to permeation of selected organic solvents. Tests of...

We study the friction between a flat solid surface where polymer chains have been end-grafted and a cross-linked elastomer at low sliding velocity. The contribution of isolated grafted chains’ penetration in the sliding elastomer has been early identified as a weakly velocity dependent pull-out force. Recent experiments have shown that the interactions between the grafted chains at high graftin...