The electrostrictive graft elastomer is a new type of electroactive polymer. Recently developed by NASA, it consists of flexible backbone chains, each with side chains, called grafts. Neighboring backbone grafts physically cross-link and form crystal units. The flexible backbone chain and the crystal graft unit consist of polarized monomers, which contain atoms with electric partial charges, generating dipole moments. When the elastomer is placed into an electric field, external rotating moments are applied to the dipole moment. This stimulates electrostrictive strain in the graft elastomer. The significant advantage of the graft elastomer is its high stiffness compared to other electrostrictive polymers, such as silicon rubber and polyurethane. The purpose of the paper is to develop a molecular-scale computational model for the electrostrictive graft elastomer.
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