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Tiny artificial muscles (such as this 216-micron-diameter nylon yarn sheathed in carbon nanotubes) can easily
exert more power as they contract, based on their weight, than human muscle can. Credit: Jiuke Mu University of
Texas at Dallas
Even as electronics have shrunk more and more, motors, hydraulics and
other gadgets used to drive motion have stubbornly resisted the trend. It
is difficult to make and assemble minuscule mechanisms that can
provide the forces and handle the stresses needed to drive exceptionally
small moving parts. This week in Science, several teams of researchers
present studies describing advances in making small artificial muscles—
all of which use tiny twisted fibers to store and release energy. The fibers
could be employed in everything from miniature robots to valves in
medical devices.
One of the new artificial muscle designs is, in essence, a small, high-tech
version of the rubber bands used to propel balsa-wood airplanes. But
these fibers do not require winding each time they are used, says Jinkai
Yuan, a materials scientist at the University of Bordeaux in France and a
co-author of one of the studies. Instead they are made of a “shape
memory” polymer that twists and untwists as the temperature of the
material changes.
A DV E R T I S E ME N T
Weight-lifting performance of individual and bundled fiber muscles actuated via a heat gun.
Credit: Mehmet Kanik and Sirma Orguc Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Here is how Yuan’s team made its muscles: First, the researchers heated
a two-centimeter-long, 40-micron-diameter fiber of a material called
polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) above its so-called programming temperature.
(Above this temperature, the material naturally takes one shape; below
it, the material can take another. If temperatures fluctuate about this
threshold, the material alternates between the two shapes.) After
twisting the fiber to store energy, they cooled it to freeze its shape.
When the fiber was once again heated above its programming
temperature, it quickly untwisted to its original shape, Yuan says.
Whereas the fibers made by Yuan and his colleagues provide torque as
they twist and untwist, the artificial muscles developed by other teams
work more like real muscles: they do work by pulling on or lifting
objects. A team led by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology created fibers that can stretch more than 1,000 percent of
their initial size and lift more than 650 times their own weight. They
operate on a principle similar to the bimetallic strips in early
thermostats: the fiber is made by bonding two materials that expand at
radically different rates as the temperature of their environment
changes, says Polina Anikeeva, a materials scientist at M.I.T. and senior
author of that study.
F ib er Stretch in g Share
Stretching a single fiber-based artificial muscle and an artificial …
Stretching a single fiber-based artificial muscle and an artificial bicep made of 100 fiber
muscles. Credit: Mehmet Kanik and Sirma Orguc Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A DV E R T I S E ME N T
Another team reporting its work in this week’s Science tackled artificial
muscles in a totally different way. Although its devices were built around
a core of twisted fibers, the active part of the muscle was actually a thin
sheath of material surrounding the core. Using such a sheath had several
benefits, says Ray Baughman, team leader and a materials scientist at
the University of Texas at Dallas. For one thing, he notes, it allows
engineers to use cheaper materials for a fiber’s core. He and his
colleagues have developed sheath-driven muscles built around cores
made of nylon, silk and bamboo yarns. Their tests show that the choice
of material for a fiber’s core does not dramatically impact its
performance.
Artificial limb is driven by two fiber-based muscles actuated via a heat gun. Credit: Mehmet
Kanik and Sirma Orguc Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A DV E R T I S E ME N T
Unlike the other teams, Baughman and his colleagues developed fibers
that respond to more than just changes in temperature. Some sported
muscle sheaths that swell when exposed to ethanol vapor; others were
veneered with a material that shrinks when soaked in a glucose solution.
These sorts of fibers could be used to open or close valves in medical
devices or to squeeze a small pouch and dispense a drug. Fibers that
respond to sweat or water vapor could be woven into “smart fabrics” that
adjust the tightness of their weave to become more breathable in hot,
humid conditions, Baughman says. Alternatively, coatings that respond
to noxious vapors could tighten a fabric’s weave to protect people
responding to a chemical spill.
A B OU T T H E A U T H OR(S)
Sid Perkins
Sid Perkins, who writes most often about Earth and planetary sciences, materials science and
paleontology, is based in Crossville, Tenn.
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