Related papers: Fiber-based shape-morphing architectures
Active structures have the ability to change their shape, properties, and functionality as a response to changing operational conditions, which makes them more versatile than their static counterparts. However, most active structures…
The rapidly developing robotics industry demands structures with novel mechanical functions. Traditional approaches, developing new materials and designing new structures, face two challenges. Highly complex force-displacement functions can…
There is a growing mechanics literature concerning the macroscopic properties of mechanism-based mechanical metamaterials. This amounts mathematically to a homogenization problem involving nonlinear elasticity. A key goal is to identify the…
Active metamaterials are engineered structures that possess novel properties that can be changed after the point of manufacture. Their novel properties arise predominantly from their physical structure, as opposed to their chemical…
We propose a primitive model of Janus ellipsoids that represent particles with an ellipsoidal core and two semi-surfaces coded with dissimilar properties, for example, hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity, respectively. We investigate the…
The study of atomically thin two-dimensional materials is a young and rapidly growing field. In the past years, a great advance in the study of the remarkable electrical and optical properties of 2D materials fabricated by exfoliation of…
From the complex motions of robots to the oxygen binding of hemoglobin, the function of many mechanical systems depends on large, coordinated movements of their components. Such movements arise from a network of physical interactions in the…
Materials that behave like machines, e.g. functional materials that are able to change shape in response to external stimuli (Bhattacharya and James, 2005), often do so by exploiting phase transitions. Shape memory materials and the tail…
Active media, whose constituents are able to move autonomously, display novel features that differ from those of equilibrium systems. In addition to naturally-occurring active systems such as populations of swimming bacteria, active systems…
Driven by the necessity to achieve a thorough comprehension of the bottom-up fabrication process of functional materials, this experimental study investigates the pair-wise interactions or collisions between chemically active SiO2-Pt Janus…
The interactions of autonomous microswimmers play an important role for the formation of collective states of motile active matter. We study them in detail for the common microswimmer-design of two-faced Janus spheres with hemispheres made…
A complete characterization is given of the possible macroscopic deformations of periodic nonlinear affine unimode metamaterials constructed from rigid bars and pivots. The materials are affine in the sense that their macroscopic…
We develop a framework to understand the mechanics of metamaterial sheets on curved surfaces. Here we have constructed a continuum elastic theory of mechanical metamaterials by introducing an auxiliary, scalar gauge-like field that absorbs…
The application of granular jamming in soft robotics is a recent and promising new technology offer exciting possibilities for creating higher performance robotic devices. Granular jamming is achieved via the application of a vacuum…
Knitting turns yarn, a 1D material, into a 2D fabric that is flexible, durable [1], and can be patterned to adopt a wide range of 3D geometries [2]. Like other mechanical metamaterials [3], the elasticity of knitted fabrics is an emergent…
Reprogrammable mechanical metamaterials, composed of a lattice of discretely adaptive elements, are emerging as a promising platform for mechanical intelligence. To operate in unknown environments, such structures must go beyond passive…
Within a decade of fruitful developments, metamaterials became a prominent area of research, bridging theoretical and applied electrodynamics, electrical engineering and material science. Being man-made structures, metamaterials offer a…
An integrated mechanical model for fiber-laden membranes is presented and representative predictions of relevance to cellulose ordering and orientation in the plant cell wall are presented. The model describes nematic liquid crystalline…
Cellular structures must organize themselves within strict physical constraints, operating with finite resources and well-defined boundaries. Classical systems demonstrate only passive responses to boundaries, from surface energy…
Active systems comprising micron-sized self-propelling units, also termed microswimmers, are promising candidates for the bottom-up assembly of small structures and reconfigurable materials. Here we leverage field-driven colloidal assembly…