Anomalous impact and vibration damping by liquid crystal elastomers

Abstract

Anomalous impact and vibration damping by liquid crystal elastomers Liquid Crystal Elastomers (LCE), invented over 30 years ago, have been considered a highly promising material system for soft actuators and artificial muscles ever since. In this second academic piece for Open Access Government, Professor of Polymer Physics, Eugene M. Terentjev explores the anomalous impact and vibration damping by liquid crystal elastomers. There is considerable interest in developing thin conformal coatings of materials that can efficiently dissipate mechanical energy, thus suppressing vibration and noise and protecting from impacts. Traditionally, to create vibration-damping materials one exploits the loss aspect of the viscoelastic response when the energy dissipates as heat in either free or constrained layer configurations.