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The concept of creating all-mechanical soft microrobotic systems has great potential to address outstanding challenges in biomedical applications, and introduce more sustainable and multifunctional products. To this end, magnetic fields and…
This work introduces the Monolithic Unit (MU), an actuator-lattice-sensor building block for soft robotics. The MU integrates pneumatic actuation, a compliant lattice envelope, and candidate sites for optical waveguide sensing into a single…
We propose an Ising machine made of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), where the annealing process is automatically executed by a dissipation mechanism. The core structure is a series of buckled plates. Two stable positions of each…
Snap-buckling is a rapid shape transition in slender structures, appearing as a fundamental switching mechanism of natural and man-made systems. Boundary conditions of structures are crucial to predict and control their snap-buckling…
Soft actuators have drawn significant attention from researchers with an inherently compliant design to address the safety issues in physical human-robot interactions. However, they are also vulnerable and pose new challenges in the design,…
Auxetic materials become thicker rather than thinner when stretched, exhibiting an unusual negative Poisson's ratio well suited for designing shape transforming metamaterials. Current auxetic designs, however, are often monostable and…
Bistability in nanomechanical resonators can be exploited for sensing, signal processing, and memory applications due to its potential for switching and high sensitivity to external stimuli. External vibration can be used to drive a…
Bistable Auxetic Metamaterials (BAMs) are a class of monolithic perforated periodic structures with negative Poisson's ratio. Under tension, a BAM can expand and reach a second state of equilibrium through a globally large shape…
We introduce a model of fracture which includes the out-of-plane degrees of freedom necessary to describe buckling in a thin-sheet material. The model is a regular square lattice of elastic beams, rigidly connected at the nodes so as to…
With recent advances in both responsive materials and fabrication techniques it is now possible to construct integrated functional structures, composed of both structural and active materials. We investigate the robust design of such…
A long-standing goal in the field of "mechanical computing" is the creation of truly reprogrammable mechanical structures, where the function of each unit can be dynamically defined, modified, and accessed on demand, much like rewriting…
From cell development to space rockets, the mechanical stability of thin shells is crucial across many industrial and natural processes. However, predicting shells' failure properties remains an open challenge, owing to their sensitivity to…
In this work, we study lattice structures that exhibit a bistable behavior, i. e., they can snap from one stable state to another, and are also completely reversible, capable of reverting back to its original state through a heat treatment.…
Optimization of large structures of multiple components is essential to many industries for minimizing mass, especially the design of aerospace vehicles. Optimizing a single primary load member independently of all other primary structures…
Recent progress in nanofabrication has led to the emergence of three-dimensional magnetic nanostructures as a vibrant field of research. This includes the study of three-dimensional arrays of interconnected magnetic nanowires with tunable…
Ductility quantifies a material's capacity for plastic deformation, and it is a key property for preventing fracture driven failure in engineering parts. While some brittle materials exhibit improved ductility at small scales, the processes…
Machine-matter, of which mechanical metamaterials and meta-devices are important sub-categories, is emerging as a major paradigm for designing advanced functional materials. Various exciting applications of these concepts have been recently…
In this paper, we augment existing techniques for simulating flexible objects to include models for crack initiation and propagation in three-dimensional volumes. By analyzing the stress tensors computed over a finite element model, the…
The ideal shock absorber combines high stiffness with high energy absorption whilst retaining structural integrity after impact and is scalable for industrial production. So far no structure meets all of these criteria. Here, we introduce a…
Snap-fits are versatile mechanical designs in industrial products, which enable the repeated assembling and disassembling of two solid parts. This important property is attributed to a fine balance between geometry, friction, and bending…