A Molecular Rheology Dynamics Study on 3D Printing of Liquid Crystal Elastomers

S Ustunel and H Pandya and ME Prevot and G Pegorin and F Shiralipour and R Paul and RJ Clements and F Khabaz and E Hegmann, MACROMOLECULAR RAPID COMMUNICATIONS, 45 (2024).

DOI: 10.1002/marc.202300717

This work presents a rheological study of a biocompatible and biodegradable liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) ink for three dimensional (3D) printing. These materials have shown that their structural variations have an effect on morphology, mechanical properties, alignment, and their impact on cell response. Within the last decade LCEs are extensively studied as potential printing materials for soft robotics applications, due to the actuation properties that are produced when liquid crystal (LC) moieties are induced through external stimuli. This report utilizes experiments and coarse-grained molecular dynamics to study the macroscopic rheology of LCEs in nonlinear shear flow. Results from the shear flow simulations are in line with the outcomes of these experimental investigations. This work believes the insights from these results can be used to design and print new material with desirable properties necessary for targeted applications. This work presents here a molecular rheological dynamics study of a biocompatible and biodegradable liquid crystal elastomers as ink for 3D printing. This work believes that printing methods (extrusion or digital light processing, DLP) can affect structural variations on printed patterns of a final prototype that influence morphology, mechanical properties, and material's alignment. image

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