A team led by Stanford University materials scientist Zhenan Bao created a new polymer that’s super stretchy and self-healing can act as a more resilient artificial muscle material. A 2.5-centimeter sheet of the stuff can be stretched out to a length of 2.5 meters. When it’s punctured it fuses back together, something other self-healing materials don’t do well in ambient conditions.
The idea behind the project is not to create the world’s strongest artificial muscle, but to learn how to engineer polymers with totally new combinations of properties—in this case, very stretchy self-healing material that’s electrically responsive.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/.../a-superstretch-selfhealing-artificial-muscle
The idea behind the project is not to create the world’s strongest artificial muscle, but to learn how to engineer polymers with totally new combinations of properties—in this case, very stretchy self-healing material that’s electrically responsive.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/.../a-superstretch-selfhealing-artificial-muscle