Simulating Polymeric Microstructures With Encoded Pre-Determined Deformability

Biological systems are able to translate stimuli into meaningful actions, reshaping themselves in response to changes in their environments. Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCE’s) represent a synthetic means of achieving this type of behavior, undergoing large deformations when nematic-isotropic phase transitions occur within the material. We use a finite element simulation method to predict the thermal response of LCE microplates, in a particular instance of this phenomenon. The shape changes are dictated by the director orientation in the nematic state, programmed in by a magnetic field present during cross-linking. After calibrating our simulation parameters against experimental results, we are able to accurately predict the observed experimental response of LCE microplates with a range of initial nematic orientations.