The role of order and disorder in impact absorbing materials

在日常生活中，机械冲击、碰撞和振动会造成损坏，我们需要新材料来抵御这些损坏。手机屏幕、自行车事故、卫星发射、电动汽车电池和风力涡轮机叶片--所有这些例子都表明，机械力的防护不足可能会对医疗保健、安全、产品寿命和经济造成影响。我们需要开发新的轻质冲击吸收和振动阻尼材料。传统的弹性材料（橡胶）往往具有较差的减震（耗散）能力。然而，一类有序的弹性体，称为液晶弹性体（LCE），显示出特别出色的耗散能力。现有LCE材料的局限性之一是它们在玻璃化转变和向列相到各向同性转变温度之间的温度窗口相对较小。该项目旨在扩大LCE的橡胶相，使其适用于一系列环境-例如温度变化较大的环境。将开发结构-性能关系，并将展示材料在一系列环境中作为冲击吸收器和振动阻尼器的性能。

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.