Research on soft artificial muscles (SAM) is growing rapidly, both to develop new ideas for action and to improve existing structures with multifunctionality. The human body has more than 600 muscles that drive organs and joints to achieve the desired functions.
Inspired by human muscles, engineers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney have developed a new class of smart textiles that can change shape and convert two-dimensional material into 3D structures. The team has produced a material that is built from small soft artificial muscles, which are long, fluid-filled silicon tubes that are manipulated to move hydraulically.
These artificial muscles, which are surrounded by a helical coil of traditional fibers, can be programmed to contract or expand in a variety of shapes depending on their initial structure.
Smart textiles can be joined to existing passive material or artificial muscles can be woven with traditional tarn to create active tissue. These smart fluid textiles take advantage of the advantages of hydraulic pressure and add fast, light, high flexibility and small size response to soft artificial muscles.
In an article published in Scientific Reports, the UNSW team showed different approaches to creating smart textiles from artificial muscle fibers. Credit: UNSW
“Our smart textiles can be programmed to perform various desired movements and deformations, such as shape-shifting structures from 2D to 3D,” said Scientia senior professor Dr. Do. “This material has important advantages, as it is made of miniature soft artificial muscles that offer a thin, flexible and highly adaptable structure.”
The new smart fabrics are highly flexible, adaptable and mechanically programmable, allowing multimodal movements and shape-shifting capabilities to be used in wider applications. Researchers have created different prototypes of smart textiles with experimental validations, including various instances of shape change, such as elongation (up to 65%), area expansion (108%), radial expansion (25%) and bending motion.
“Soft robots that use our smart textiles can change shape and be implemented as a lifting mechanism, such as when rescuing people from collapsed buildings or other dangerous environments, or as a tubular clamp “In our experiments, we could lift objects about 346 times the weight of the material itself,” said Scientia professor Nigel Lovell.
The research team, which published its latest findings in the journals Scientific Reports and Soft Robotics, said the new smart textile could have a wide range of applications in many different fields. These may include use as a compression piece in medical and healthcare settings, as a support device for those who need help with movement, and even as soft robots that change shape that can help the recovery of people trapped in confined spaces.
The UNSW team continues to work on further developments, including the integration of a miniature soft pump and wireless communication modules, which will allow for an offline system.