Elastocaloric effect in liquid crystal elastomers from molecular simulations

ABSTRACT

Large-scale molecular simulations of the elastocaloric effect in swollen monodomain main-chain liquid crystal elastomers are performed, following the so-called ‘indirect approach’ where the magnitude of the effect is extracted from the system’s equation of state connecting stress, strain and temperature. The presented isostress off-lattice Monte Carlo simulations are based on the soft-core Gay–Berne potential and predict an elastocaloric temperature increase that exceeds $\sim 10$ K upon applying an external engineering stress of 100 kPa, which results in an elastocaloric responsivity beyond $\sim 100$ K/MPa.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Elastocaloric effect
• liquid crystal elastomer
• Monte Carlo simulation
• Gay–Berne potential

Acknowledgements

Discussions with Z. Kutnjak, B. Rožič, B. Zalar (Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana), R. Berardi and C. Zannoni (University of Bologna) are gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund; NAMASTE Centre of Excellence, Space-SI Centre of Excellence) and the Slovenian Research Agency (programme P1-0099, projects J1-7435 and J1-9147).