DIC Analysis on Crack Properties of Polydomain Liquid Crystal Elastomers

Abstract

Liquid crystal elastomers (LCE) exhibit a unique mechanical property called soft elasticity due to the coupling of LC orientation and rubber elasticity. For example, LCEs with polydomain director alignment can undergo a transition to a globally aligned monodomain state under the application of exceedingly small tensile force. We investigate the nonuniform strain field around the crack-tip of LCEs by digital image correlation (DIC) technique. The results show that soft elasticity causes a high degree of strain concentration around the crack-tip.