Original story from Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (MA, USA). A new 3D printing method that enables materials to bend, twist, expand or contract on demand inspires ‘artificial muscles’. Nature is replete with slender filaments that bend and coil – from climbing grape vines, to folded proteins, to elephant trunks that can pick up a peanut but also take down a tree. Harvard scientists seeking to endow synthetic materials with this type of nature-inspired physical control have developed a 3D printing strategy that turns soft, hair-like filaments into programmable ‘artificial muscles’ that bend, twist, expand or contract when heated or cooled. It’s an innovative step toward recreating the complexity of biological muscles, which consist of bundles of fibers that work together to produce intricate motions. The breakthrough is from the lab of Jennifer Lewis, the Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering in the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (MA, USA), and described in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by first author and postdoctoral researcher Mustafa Abdelrahman and colleagues. Rotational multimaterial 3D printing In their study, the researchers used a technique developed in the Lewis lab called rotational multimaterial 3D printing to print unique filaments consisting of components that change shape and components that don’t, or what they call active and passive materials. Their active material is a liquid crystal elastomer, a special type of polymer that has attracted research interest as a candidate for artificial muscle because it…
