Modeling hard-soft block copolymers as a liquid crystalline polymer

Abstract

We report a new computational approach to model hard-soft block copolymers like polyurea as a liquid crystalline polymer to understand their microstructural evolution due to mechanical loading. The resulting microstructure closely resembles the microstructure observed in polyurea. The stress-strain relations in uniaxial compression and tension loading obtained from the model are also in close quantitative agreement with the experimental data for polyurea. We use the model to elucidate the evolution of the hard and the soft domains during loading, which is consistent with the experimental measurements characterizing microstructural evolution in polyurea.