학술논문

Principle of virtual power and drilling degrees of freedom for dynamic modeling of the behavior of liquid crystal elastomer films
Document Type
Original Paper
Source
Continuum Mechanics and Thermodynamics. 35(5):1981-2001
Subject
Nematic liquid crystal elastomer
Momentum-conserving time stepping scheme
Variational principle
Micropolar continuum
Language
English
ISSN
0935-1175
1432-0959
Abstract
In this work, we aim to model the reorientation process of mesogens in nematic liquid crystal elastomers within the context of dynamics. We consider a continuum model with separate mappings for the deformation of the monolithic material and the orientation of the nematic director, where the latter describes the inclination of the mesogens. We achieve the inextensibility of the nematic director through the introduction of drilling degrees of freedom. We combine this approach with the application of the principle of virtual power and a mixed finite element formulation, in order to formulate distinct momentum and angular momentum balance laws for the two separate mappings. Furthermore, we include in our continuum model a volume load and a surface load associated only with the orientation mapping. We show in the presented three numerical examples that our formulation enables the fulfillment of all momentum and angular momentum balance laws.