A new hybrid material composed of stiff metal and soft rubber foam is paving the way for futuristic robots and aircraft that can transform from rigid to elastic shapes.
Watch the morphing metal in the video below.
The material also has the ability to self-heal following damage.
“It’s sort of like us – we have a skeleton, plus soft muscles and skin,” said Rob Shepherd, Cornell University engineering professor who is working with the material. “Unfortunately, that skeleton limits our ability to change shape – unlike an octopus, which does not have a skeleton.”
Shepherd and the Cornell team are working with the material to blend the rigidity and load-bearing capacity of humans with the ability to dramatically alter shape, like an octopus.
What’s it made of?
This hybrid material combines a soft alloy called Field’s metal with a porous silicone foam. Field’s metal was chosen because it has a low melting point and contains no led, unlike similar alloys.
“In general, we want the things we make in this lab to be biocompatible,” said Ilse Van Meerbeek, a graduate student in the field of mechanical engineering and a contributor to the paper.
The foam is dipped into the molten metal and then placed in a vacuum. This action removes the air in the foam’s pores and replaces it with the alloy. The foam, with its pore sizes of about 2 millimeters, can be tuned to create a stiffer or a more flexible material.
In testing, the material deformed when heated above 144º, regained rigidity when cooled, and then return to its original shape and strength when re-heated.
“Sometimes you want a robot, or any machine, to be stiff,” said Shepherd. “But when you make them stiff, they can’t morph their shape very well. And to give a soft robot both capabilities, to be able to morph their structure but also to be stiff and bear load, that’s what this material does.”
Story and video via Cornell University.
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