Smart material

About: Smart material is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3704 publications have been published within this topic receiving 74280 citations. The topic is also known as: intelligent material & responsive material.

Softer is Harder: What Differentiates Soft Robotics from Hard Robotics?

Abstract: This paper reports on what differentiates the field of soft (i.e. soft-bodied) robotics from the conventional hard (i.e. rigid-bodied) robotics. The main difference centres on seamlessly combining the actuation, sensing, motion transmission and conversion mechanism elements, electronics and power source into a continuum body that ideally holds the properties of morphological computation and programmable compliance (i.e. softness). Another difference is about the materials they are made of. While the hard robots are made of rigid materials such as metals and hard plastics with a bulk elastic modulus of as low as 1 GPa, the monolithic soft robots should be fabricated from soft and hard materials or from a strategic combination of them with a maximum elasticity modulus of 1 GPa. Soft smart materials with programmable mechanical, electrical and rheological properties, and conformable to additive manufacturing based on 3D printing are essential to realise soft robots. Selecting the actuation concept and its power source, which is the first and most important step in establishing a robot, determines the size, weight, performance of the soft robot, the type of sensors and their location, control algorithm, power requirement and its associated flexible and stretchable electronics. This paper outlines how crucial the soft materials are in realising the actuation concept, which can be inspired from animal and plant movements.

Recent Advances on Stimuli‐Responsive Smart Materials and their Applications

Abstract: Stimuli-responsive materials have raised major attention in digital technology, sensors and biomedical applications owing to quick response towards external stimuli, for example light, voltage, pressure, temperature, mechanical friction and pH. Nevertheless, action of external stimuli on organic materials affects their internal physico-chemical properties and facilitates improved thermal/photo stability, tuning detection sensitivity, accuracy and biocompatibility. This review article highlights recent progress on stimuli-responsive materials with mixed valence species, viologens, twisting chirality, crystalline/amorphous, sol-gel phase transitions and resulting supramolecular nanostructures via non-covalent interactions. These materials can be applied in flexible electronics, drug delivery, detection of pollutants and bioimaging. Thus, the demand for widespread research on development of stimuli-responsive materials are requisite to resolve the challenges pertaining to stability and sensitivity of devices for design in comprehensive technology.

Searching for a Stable High-Performance Magnetorheological Suspension.

Abstract: Magnetorheological (MR) fluids are a type of smart material with rheological properties that may be controlled through mesostructural transformations MR fluids form solid-like fibril structures along the magnetic field direction upon application of a magnetic field due to magnetopolarization of soft-magnetic particles when suspended in an inert medium A reverse structural transition occurs upon removal of the applied field The structural changes are very fast on the order of milliseconds The rheological properties of MR fluids vary with the application of a magnetic field, resulting in non-Newtonian viscoplastic flow behaviors Recent applications have increased the demand for MR materials with better performance and good long-term stability A variety of industrial MR materials have been developed and tested in numerous experimental and theoretical studies Because modeling and analysis are essential to optimize material design, a new macroscale structural model has been developed to distinguish between static yield stress and dynamic yield stress and describe the flow behavior over a wide range of shear rates Herein, this recent progress in the search for advanced MR fluid materials with good stability is described, along with new approaches to MR flow behavior analysis Several ways to improve the stability and efficiency of the MR fluids are also summarized

Reprogrammable Ferromagnetic Domains for Reconfigurable Soft Magnetic Actuators

Abstract: Soft magnetic materials have shown promise in diverse applications due to their fast response, remote actuation, and large penetration range for various conditions. Herein, a new soft magnetic comp...