A wide range of polymer-based materials, from tire rubber and wetsuit neoprene to Lycra clothing and silicone, are elastomers valued for their ability to flex and stretch without breaking and return to their original form.
Imagine a tiny capsule, smaller than the tip of a needle, that could be programmed to release medicine at a specific location in your body and is inexpensive, easy to make, and more effective than the traditional pharmaceuticals ...
Self-healing materials are able to repair autonomously defects, such as scratches, cracks or dents, and resume their original shape. For this purpose, they must be composed of several components whose combined properties ...
For the first time, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have successfully 3-D printed composite silicone materials that are flexible, stretchable and possess shape memory behavior, a discovery that could ...
A pair of engineers at the University of Delaware has developed a process to form interwoven polymer networks more easily, quickly and sustainably than traditional methods allow. Their secret ingredient? Blue light.
Traditional rigid-bodied robots are stiff, with few degrees of freedom, placing limits on many applications. Recently, more engineers are learning from the soft flexibility properties of living beings to advance bionic soft ...
Polymeric aerogels are nanoporous structures that combine some of the most desirable characteristics of materials, such as flexibility and mechanical strength. It is nearly impossible to improve on a substance considered ...
Microbes, specifically disease-causing bacteria, can cause all sorts of havoc when they take hold on surfaces.
New research has shown that honeycomb "cellular" materials made of a shape-memory polymer might be programmed for specific purposes, from shock-absorbing football helmets to biomedical implants.
Artificial muscles—materials that contract and expand somewhat like muscle fibers do—can have many applications, from robotics to components in the automobile and aviation industries. Now, MIT researchers have come up with ...
