Slashdot Mirror
Artificial Muscles Pack a Mean Punch
sciencehabit writes "Here's a twist: Scientists have designed a flexible, yarn-like artificial muscle that can also pack a punch. It can contract in 25 milliseconds—a fraction of the time it takes to blink an eye—and can generate power 85 times as great as a similarly sized human muscle. The new muscles are made of carbon nanotubes filled with paraffin wax that can twist or stretch in response to heat or electricity. When the temperature rises, the wax melts and forces the nanotubes to contract. Such artificial muscles, the researchers say, could power smart materials, sensors, robots, and even devices inside the human body."
Does that mean getting rid of waste heat is going to be even more important?
What's the efficiency like?
On top of the power efficiency I'm also wondering how many times a muscle can be used before it gets too damaged.
Ah. Excellent, I have been intentionally not developing real muscles for years so I would have room for the artificial ones.
Who's sorry now dad?!
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6109/928.full
I suppose that this will answer some of the questions.
Kind of makes me wonder why slashdot almost never links the REAL articles and instead just links some fancy news sites with second hand information.
Yam-like? Or is that just bad keming?
I wonder if such a technology could be used in artificially enhancing the muscles of a person to make a super-human, or super-soldier. The chemistry can't be that complex, so I'm sure it's possible through bio-chemical engineering. I'd bet $100 that the US and others have done it before.
I'm thinking they'd have to reinforce the bones and joints as well. 85x stronger muscles are going to do some serious damage if the bones aren't reinforced.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
If you want to rip your tendons in half, sure.
You'd have to completely replace the skeletal muscular system and integrate it with existing parts so it can handle the new tissue. And then there are the issues of skin abrasion, circulatory problems, self-healing...
Needless to say we won't be seeing superhumans anytime soon, at least not of this sort. You may see some kind of application in robotics or assisted lifting devices. Maybe in fifteen, twenty years if the technology proves feasible and robust enough you may see a powered armor.
The article's (Electrically, Chemically, and Photonically Powered Torsional and Tensile Actuation of Hybrid Carbon Nanotube Yarn Muscles) abstract has this to say about how many times this Nanotube yarn muscle can be used:
.
We have designed guest-filled, twist-spun carbon nanotube yarns as electrolyte-free muscles that provide fast, high-force, large-stroke torsional and tensile actuation. More than a million torsional and tensile actuation cycles are demonstrated, wherein a muscle spins a rotor at an average 11,500 revolutions/minute or delivers 3% tensile contraction at 1200 cycles/minute.
[bold text added by me to accentuate the answer, at least one million cycles demonstrated thus far]
Sulphur, I don't have access through the paywall to the article, but I calculate the fiber recharge time to be less than 50 milliseconds:
.
"delivers 3% tensile contraction at 1200 cycles/minute"
The abstract explicitly states that they tested the carbon-nanotube fibers for up to 1-million cycles with a rep-rate of 1200 cycles/minute, so that gives us 20 Hz, so the recharge/rep time is less than 1/20th of a second = 50 milliseconds:
The article's abstract (Electrically, Chemically, and Photonically Powered Torsional and Tensile Actuation of Hybrid Carbon Nanotube Yarn Muscles) has this to say about how many times this Nanotube yarn muscle can be used:
.
We have designed guest-filled, twist-spun carbon nanotube yarns as electrolyte-free muscles that provide fast, high-force, large-stroke torsional and tensile actuation. More than a million torsional and tensile actuation cycles are demonstrated, wherein a muscle spins a rotor at an average 11,500 revolutions/minute or delivers 3% tensile contraction at 1200 cycles/minute. [bold text added by me to accentuate the answer, at least one million cycles demonstrated thus far]
In the book they had powered armoured suits. Three types were described: Grunt, Scout and Officer, with different capabilities.
In the movie-of-the-same-name-that-was-nothing-like-the-book, that would have been an expensive special effect, so they just had cheap plastic armour.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...