Related papers: Programming stiff inflatable shells from planar pa…

We describe size-varying cylindrical particles made from silicone elastomers that can serve as building blocks for robotic granular materials. The particle size variation, which is achieved by inflation, gives rise to changes in stiffness…

Shape-programmed sheets morph from one surface into another upon activation by stimuli such as illumination, and have attracted much interest for their potential engineering applications, especially in soft robotics. Complex shape changes…

Programmable structures are systems whose undeformed geometries and material property distributions are deliberately designed to achieve prescribed deformed configurations under specific loading conditions. Inflatable structures are a…

Extreme deformation can drastically morph a structure from one structural form into another. Programming such deformation properties into the structure is often challenging and in many cases an impossible task. The morphed forms do not hold…

Conventional soft pneumatic actuators, typically based on hollow elastomeric chambers, often suffer from small structural support and require costly geometry-specific redesigns for multimodal functionality. Porous materials such as foam,…

Deployable structures, essential across various engineering applications ranging from umbrellas to satellites, are evolving to include soft, morphable designs where geometry drives transformation. However, a major challenge for soft…

In this paper, we study the problem of shape-programming of incompressible hyperelastic shells through differential growth. The aim of the current work is to determine the growth tensor (or growth functions) that can produce the deformation…

Recent experiments have imposed controlled swelling patterns on thin polymer films, which subsequently buckle into three-dimensional shapes. We develop a solution to the design problem suggested by such systems, namely, if and how one can…

Shells, when confined, can deform in a broad assortment of shapes and patterns, often quite dissimilar to what is produced by their flat counterparts (plates). In this work we discuss the morphological landscape of shells deposited on a…

A single-step, single-material 4D printing method is developed for programmable structures featuring spatially patterned strain trapping for one-way actuation. This approach enables fabrication on desktop fused filament fabrication 3D…

Soft interfaces formed by lipid membranes are fundamental to living cells, synthetic cells, and membrane-based soft materials. However, a quantitative framework linking molecular organization with nonlinear interfacial mechanics remains…

Mechanical metamaterials have continued to offer unprecedented tunability in mechanical properties, but most designs to date have prioritized attaining high stiffness and strength while sacrificing deformability. The emergence of woven…

Nematic elastomers are programmable soft materials that display large, reversible and predictable deformation under an external stimulus such as a change in temperature or light. While much of the work in the field has focused on actuation…

In this paper, we present a 2D numerical model developed to simulate the dynamics of soft, deformable particles. To accommodate significant particle deformations, the particle surface is represented as a narrow shell composed of mass points…

We use numerical simulations to show how noninteracting hard particles binding to a deformable elastic shell may self-assemble into a variety of linear patterns. This is a result of the nontrivial elastic response to deformations of shells.…

While isotropic in-plane swelling problems for thin elastic sheets have been studied extensively in recent years, many shape-programmable materials, including nematic solids and 3D-printed structures, are anisotropic, as are most industrial…

Inflatable structures used in soft robotics applications exhibit unique characteristics. In particular, the tip-extension structure, which grows from the tip, can grow without friction against the environment. However, these inflatable…

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…

This paper studies elasto-plastic large deformation behavior of thin shell structures using the isogeometric computational approach with the main focus on the efficiency in modelling the multi-patches and arbitrary material formulations. In…

New additive manufacturing methods are needed to realize more complex soft robots. One example is soft fluidic robotics, which exploits fluidic power and stiffness gradients. Porous structures are an interesting type for this approach, as…