Fig. 3: Impact damping test.
From: Impact damping and vibration attenuation in nematic liquid crystal elastomers
a Spherical ball impact on a flat elastomer pad. The incident kinetic energy of ca. 3 J was partially transmitted through the elastomer into the receiving bar, the plot showing the power transmitted after the impact at t = 0 s. PDMS sample has 74% of impact energy dissipated, and clearly shows the under-damped oscillations after impact. Both LCE samples have dissipated over 90% of impact energy, and show the overdamped response both at the onset and after the force pulse. b Flat surface impact on a semi-spherical elastomer pad (of PDMS, LCE40 and LCE10), showing the low and heavily overdamped wave transmission: of the impact energy of 2 J, only 0.01 J (0.4%) was transmitted into the target rod by the LCEs while almost all energy was reflected by PDMS, with 28% of impact energy absorbed in the elastomers in this geometry. In both panels, the sketches illustrate the geometry of impact and the deformation field distribution in the elastomer.
