Development of Liquid Crystalline Elastomeric Composites with Enhanced Shape Memory Characteristics

New liquid crystalline elastomeric (LCE) composites were developed through experimental and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for shape memory applications. Lignin was utilised as a sustainable and cost-effective choice of fillers to improve shape memory and relevant intensive properties of the composite materials. MD simulations, as computational techniques, were exploited to comparatively study force fields to precisely capture the dynamics and structures and investigate the curing behaviour of modelled LCE. The processability of these materials was established with further fabricating with thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) through additive manufacturing technology for scalability and volume production in the future.