Date:

2025-04-30

Title of Paper:

Programmable Morphing Composites with Embedded Continuous Fibers by 4D Printing

Journal:

Materials and design

Summary:

In recent years, with the great progress in the field of 3D printing and 4D printing, the coding design for artificial materials during preparation has been realized, making the materials possess controllable self-folding, self-evolving, and self-assembly characteristics. However, the current 4D printing technology has some limitations on the controllability of surface deformation, and can only realize the bending deformation of several simple shapes. In this paper, a new 4D printing technology of composites with embedded continuous fibers is introduced, causing the programmed thermal expansion characteristics of a bilayer with precisely controlled fiber trajectory on its surface. The value and direction of the surface curvature are completely controlled and continuously changed responding to the ambient temperature. Through theoretical analysis and experimental verification of the deformation mechanism, we have obtained a universal deformation method for arbitrary deployable surfaces, which can generate corresponding fiber trajectory according to a specified shape. In addition, materials prepared by this technology have improved significantly in terms of deformation accuracy, mechanical strength and deformation speed compared to other 4D printing technologies. This study is expected to be applied to the field of soft robot, flexible folding material and self-assembled material.

Co-author:

Qingrui Wang, Xiaoyong Tian*, Lan Huang, Dichen Li, Andrei V. Malakhov, and Alex

Translation or Not:

No

Date of Publication:

2018-06-15