Reshaping nemato-elastic sheets

TL;DR

This paper investigates how thin nemato-elastic sheets with defects reshape into 3D forms during phase transition, combining analytical curvature analysis and finite element simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a method to analyze Gaussian curvature in nemato-elastic sheets with defects and demonstrates 3D shape formation influenced by boundary conditions.

Findings

Gaussian curvature varies with defect type and domain topology.

Finite element simulations reveal boundary-dependent 3D shapes.

Defects induce specific curvature singularities in the sheets.

Abstract

We consider three-dimensional reshaping of thin nemato-elastic sheets containing half-charged defects upon nematic-isotropic transition. Gaussian curvature, that can be evaluated analytically when the nematic texture is known, differs from zero in the entire domain and has a dipole or hexapole singularity, respectively, at defects of positive or negative sign. The latter kind of defects appears in not simply connected domains. Three-dimensional shapes dependent on boundary anchoring are obtained with the help of finite element computations.