Energy Storage and Release of Polydimethylsiloxane Comb and Bottlebrush Network Polymers

Nature has beaten humanity at creating high energy-loading and energy-releasing systems. Through Latch Mediated Spring Actuated systems, such as the mantis shrimp punch or trap jaw ant mandible snap, natural systems achieve much higher mass to energy release ratios at much faster release rates than what we are currently capable of creating. One possible source of this incredible energy performance could be the material properties of biological tissues. Most types of materials show an inverse linear relationship between Young's modulus (E) and stretch (λ), but biological materials can break away from that "Golden Rule". Our goal is to recreate the nonlinear relationship between E and λ with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) polymers, aiming to achieve similar energy release rates as biological tissues like chitin and tendon. We can create PDMS comb polymers with different material properties by varying the amounts and proportions of side chains and crosslinks within the polymer network structures. We explore the relationship between energy storage and release by examining both the material properties and the loading/unloading rates of our polymers through mechanical testing.