Related papers: Design of an engaging-disengaging compliant mechan…
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…
The design of compliant mechanisms is crucial in several technologies and relies on the availability of solutions for nonlinear structural problems. One of these solutions is given and experimentally validated in the present article for a…
Compliant mechanisms achieve motion through elastic deformation. In this work, we address the synthesis of a compliant cross-hinge mechanism capable of large angular strokes while approximating the behavior of an ideal revolute joint. To…
Materials that change their shape in response to external stimuli opens up new prospects for efficient and versatile design and shaping of three-dimensional objects. Here, we present a novel class of micro-structures exhibiting an…
Industrial laparoscopic graspers use multi-link rigid mechanisms manufactured to tight tolerances, resulting in high manufacturing and assembly costs. This work presents the design and proof-of-concept validation of a monolithic, fully…
Compliant mechanisms are alternatives to conventional mechanisms which exploit elastic strain to produce desired deformations instead of using moveable parts. They are designed for a kinematic task (providing desired deformations) but do…
Antagonistic artificial muscles can decouple joint torque and stiffness, but contact transients often degrade this independence. We present a unified real-time framework applicable across pneumatic, electrohydraulic, and dielectric…
Garments with the ability to provide kinesthetic force-feedback on-demand can augment human capabilities in a non-obtrusive way, enabling numerous applications in VR haptics, motion assistance, and robotic control. However, designing such…
The aim of this paper is to deal with multi-physics simulation of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) based on an advanced numerical methodology. MEMS are very small devices in which electric as well as mechanical and fluid phenomena…
We investigate the morphology and mechanics of a naturally curved elastic arch loaded at its center and frictionally supported at both ends on a flat, rigid substrate. Through systematic numerical simulations, we classify the observed…
Humans possess a remarkable ability to react to unpredictable perturbations through immediate mechanical responses, which harness the visco-elastic properties of muscles to maintain balance. Inspired by this behaviour, we propose a novel…
As we enter the age of designer matter - where objects can morph and change shape on command - what tools do we need to create shape-shifting structures? At the heart of an elastic deformation is the combination of dilation and distortion,…
A flat sheet programmed with a planar pattern of spontaneous shape change will morph into a curved surface. Such metric mechanics is seen in growing biological sheets, and may be engineered in actuating soft matter sheets such as…
This paper presents a novel, modular, cable-driven soft robotic arm featuring multi-segment reconfigurability. The proposed architecture enables a stackable system with independent segment control, allowing scalable adaptation to diverse…
The adhesive behaviour of biological attachment structures such as spider web anchorages is usually studied using single or multiple peeling models involving "tapes", i.e. one-dimensional contacts elements. This is an oversimplification for…
We study the mechanics of a reversible decohesion (unzipping) of an elastic layer subjected to quasi-static end-point loading. At the micro level the system is simulated by an elastic chain of particles interacting with a rigid foundation…
We present a methodology to simulate the mechanics of knots in elastic rods using geometrically nonlinear, full three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis. We focus on the mechanical behavior of knots in tight configurations, for which…
Soft electronics have recently gathered considerable interest thanks to their bio-mechanical compatibility. An important feature of such deformable conductors is their electrical response to strain. While development of stretchable…
Nonreciprocal entanglement, characterized by inherently robust operation, is a cornerstone for quantum information processing and communications. However, it remains a great challenge to achieve nonreciprocal entanglement characterized by…
The purpose of this research is to design, fabricate and test a tendon driven a continuum soft robot with three modular segments, each of which has a tunable stiffness enabled by layer jamming technology. Compared with previous studies, the…