Related papers: Toggling stiffness via multistability
We present a locomotion mechanism that uses the stick-slip transition of a soft passive structure with an internal mechanical resonance. The structure is harmonically driven by a global vertical shaking and, because of its resonance…
Heteropolymers are ubiquitous in both synthetic systems, such as block copolymers, and biological macromolecules, including proteins and nucleic acids. Beyond their chemical composition, these polymers often exhibit spatial variations in…
Basket weaving is a traditional craft used to create practical three-dimensional (3D) structures. While the geometry and aesthetics of baskets have received considerable attention, the underlying mechanics and modern engineering potential…
Active solids such as cell collectives, colloidal clusters, and active metamaterials exhibit diverse collective phenomena, ranging from rigid body motion to shape-changing mechanisms. The nonlinear dynamics of such active materials remains…
The paper presents a new stiffness modelling method for multi-chain parallel robotic manipulators with flexible links and compliant actuating joints. In contrast to other works, the method involves a FEA-based link stiffness evaluation and…
Sim-to-real transfer remains a significant challenge in soft robotics due to the unpredictability introduced by common manufacturing processes such as 3D printing and molding. These processes often result in deviations from simulated…
Metamaterials, i.e., artificially structured ("synthetic") media comprising weakly coupled discrete elements, exhibit extraordinary properties and they hold a great promise for novel applications including super-resolution imaging,…
Mechanical metamaterials are engineered materials that gain their remarkable mechanical properties, such as negative Poisson's ratios, negative compressibility, phononic bandgaps, and topological phonon modes, from their structure rather…
Entangled matter displays unusual and attractive properties and mechanisms: tensile strength, capabilities for assembly and disassembly, damage tolerance. While some of the attributes and mechanisms share some traits with traditional…
Natural materials often feature a combination of soft and stiff phases, arranged to achieve excellent mechanical properties, such as high strength and toughness. Many natural materials have even independently evolved to have similar…
Soft robots have been leveraged in considerable areas like surgery, rehabilitation, and bionics due to their softness, flexibility, and safety. However, it is challenging to produce two same soft robots even with the same mold and…
Woven shell structures are beneficial for applications requiring lightweight, damage resilience, and design tunability, such as in wearable devices, soft robotics, and aerospace systems. A fundamental component of woven structures is the…
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…
Elastic metamaterials are often designed for a single permanent function. We explore the possibility of altering a material's function repeatedly through a self-organization, "training" process, controlled by applied strains. We show that…
Architectural transformations play a key role in the evolution of complex systems, from design algorithms for metamaterials to flow and plasticity of disordered media. Here, we develop a general framework for the evolution of the linear…
Origami designs offer extreme reconfigurability due to hinge rotation and facet deformation. This can be exploited to make lightweight metamaterials with controlled deployability and tunable properties. Here, we create a family of…
Magnetic materials hosting stable topological spin textures have demonstrated energy efficiency and potential as information carriers in novel logic and memory devices, offering an alternative to magnetic tunnel junction technology. While…
Nature provides examples of self-assemble lightweight disordered network structures with remarkable mechanical properties which are desirable for many applications purposes but challenging to reproduce artificially. Previous experimental…
The capabilities of additive manufacturing have facilitated the design and production of mechanical metamaterials with diverse unit cell geometries. Establishing linkages between the vast design space of unit cells and their effective…
The mechanical environment of a substrate plays a key role in influencing the behavior of adherent biological cells. Traditional tunable substrates have limitations as their mechanical properties cannot be dynamically altered in-situ during…