@article {2014, title = {Swelling dynamics of a thin elastomeric sheet under uniaxial pre-stretch}, number = {Journal of Applied Physics;volume 115; issue 8; article number 083505;}, year = {2014}, publisher = {American Institute of Physics}, abstract = {It has been demonstrated experimentally that pre-stretch affects the swelling of an elastomeric membrane when it is exposed to a solvent. We study theoretically the one-dimensional swelling of a pre-stretched thin elastomeric sheet, bonded to an impermeable rigid substrate, to quantify the influence of pre-stretch. We show that the solvent uptake increases when pre-stretch increases, both at equilibrium and during the swelling transient, where it exhibits two different scaling regimes. The coupling between the solvent uptake and pre-stretch may be practically exploited to design soft actuators where the swelling-induced deformations can be controlled by varying the pre-stretch.}, doi = {10.1063/1.4866576}, url = {http://urania.sissa.it/xmlui/handle/1963/35113}, author = {Alessandro Lucantonio and Paola Nardinocchi and Howard A. Stone} }