Elastocaloric effect in liquid crystal elastomers from molecular simulations

Large-scale molecular simulations of the elastocaloric effect in swollen monodomain main-chain liquid crystal elastomers are performed, following the so-called 'indirect approach' where the magnitude of the effect is extracted from the system's equation of state connecting stress, strain and temperature. The presented isostress off-lattice Monte Carlo simulations are based on the soft-core Gay-Berne potential and predict an elastocaloric temperature increase that exceeds similar to 10 K upon applying an external engineering stress of 100 kPa, which results in an elastocaloric responsivity beyond similar to 100 K/MPa. [GRAPHICS] .