Material with Unprecedented Pulling Force Eyed for Artificial Muscles

Researchers have once again found inspiration in nature to improve the design of materials, this time for programmable fibers for artificial muscles that demonstrate an unprecedented amount of pulling force, they said. A team at MIT were inspired by the growth of a cucumber plant, which sprouts tendrils that seek support to pull the plant upward, enabling it to receive optimal sunlight exposure. Scientists—including MIT Professor Polina Anikeeva, MIT postdoc Mehmet Kanik, and MIT graduate student Sirma Örgüç—used this example to develop a new mechanism that alternately coils and pulls to produce contracting fibers that can be programmed for use in artificial muscles for robots, prosthetic limbs, or other mechanical and biomedical applications, they said. The tiny coils in the fiber developed by MIT researchers curl even tighter when warmed up. This causes the fiber to contract, much like a muscle fiber. (Image sources: Felice Frankel, MIT News) Researchers already have used myriad approaches to create artificial muscles; some of these include hydraulic systems, servo motors, shape-memory metals, and polymers that react to external stimuli. However, so far all of these approaches are limited in various ways, including being too heavy or responding too slowly. The new approach taken by the MIT team uses a fiber-drawing technique to combine two dissimilar polymers into a single strand of fiber, creatin...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Tags: Design News Source Type: news