The role of order and disorder in impact absorbing materials

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The everyday world is full of mechanical shocks, impacts and vibrations that cause damage - we need new materials to protect against these.Phone screens, cycling accidents, satellite launches, electric vehicle batteries, and wind turbine blades - all examples where inadequate protection from mechanical forces can have healthcare, safety, product longevity and financial consequences. We need to develop new lightweight impact absorbing and vibration damping materials.Conventional elastomeric materials (rubbers) tend to have poor shock absorbing (dissipative) capabilities. However, one class of ordered elastomer, called a liquid crystal elastomer (LCE), show particularly exceptional dissipative capabilities. One of the limitations of existing LCEs materials is that they have relatively small temperature windows between their glass transitions and their nematic-to-isotropic transition temperatures.This project seeks to widen the rubber nematic phase of LCEs making them suitable for a range of environments - such as those with large changes in temperature. Structure-property relationships will be developed and the performance of the materials as impact absorbers and vibration dampers in a range of environments will be demonstrated.