Elasticity, rubber comparison with experiment

An extension of rubber elasticity (i.e. of the description of large, static and incompressible deformations) to nematic elastomers has been given in a large number of papers [52, 61-66]. Abrupt transitions between different orientations of the director under external mechanical stress have been predicted in a model without spatial nonuniformities in the strain field [52,63]. The effect of electric fields on rubber elasticity of nematics has been incorporated [65]. Finally the approach of rubber elasticity was also applied recently to smectic A [67] and to smectic C [68] elastomers. Comparisons with experiments on smectic elastomers do not appear to exist at this time. Recently a rather detailed review of the model of an-... 

In spite of its long history, the molecular theory of rubber elasticity is not yet in a definitive form. It is difficult to test the validity of the assumptions which are made in different versions of the theory by direct comparison with experiment because it is difficult both to characterize completely the material involved and to focus on the role of only a single aspect of the theory. The computer simulation of idealized... 

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