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New Material Can Fold Itself Into Hundreds of Shapes (sciencemag.org)

Posted by Soulskill on from the let's-see-what-happens-when-we-attach-a-million-of-them-together dept.

sciencehabit writes: Researchers have created the first heat-reactive polymer material that can not only remember its current shape but also memorize new ones. The material—which currently requires high temperatures to change shape and reset its memory—could lead to a new generation of reusable self-folding materials that could be useful for everything from medical implants to shape-shifting electronics (abstract). The new substance has transition temperatures of 70C and 130C for elasticity and plasticity, respectively. To demonstrate its multishape capabilities, Xie's team turned a 30-millimeter square of the material into an origami masterpiece that could fold between two shapes using elasticity and change into other shapes using plasticity. Not only did the material fold into multiple different shapes, but it could also snap between them hundreds of times with little sign of fatigue—a critical feature if the material is to be used in real-world applications, they report today in Science Advances.

6 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. Like a brooch? by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 3, Funny

    Or a hat. Or pterodactyl.

  2. Re:A million uses for this by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    name two

    Injectable stents for heart patients.
    Contraceptive devices
    Penile implants
    Artery-clearing devices
    Surgical implants for plastic surgery
    Anti-snoring devices
    Adjustable joint parts
    Adjustable eye/vision implants

    FFS sake, your imagination must be thinner than a coat of paint. These took me ~30 seconds to come up with and I've got no medical background. I'm sure any doctor or surgeon or orthopedic specialist could come up with dozens in a minute or two. And those are just from one field.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  3. Shape Memory Alloy by MountainLogic · · Score: 3, Informative

    Shape Memory Alloy are a Nickel Titainium alloy often called muscle wire because by changing its crystal structure it gets shorter when heated or an electric current runs through it. While very different in how it works from a polymer, Shape Memory Alloy has had similar uses including heart stints, explosive bolt replacements on spacecraft, toys and heating air vent controls. Biggest down side to it is it tends to be a bit slow so it is more sloth muscle than jackrabbit muscle.

  4. Re:A million uses for this by dsmatthews9379 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Reusable fortune cookies.

  5. Re:needs a video by sexconker · · Score: 2

    Buried in the paper which is blind-linked in the article:

    http://advances.sciencemag.org...
    http://advances.sciencemag.org...
    http://advances.sciencemag.org...
    http://advances.sciencemag.org...
    http://advances.sciencemag.org...

    "All movies are accelerated by a factor of 2."

    So they're triple speed videos. (If they meant that they're double speed they should have said they're accelerated by a factor of 1, or by 100 percent. I'm going to take them at their actual word.)

  6. missing name of research team and lab? by sittingnut · · Score: 2

    researchers Tao Xie and colleagues from State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering in Hangzhou, China.
    these things should be mentioned in post above (and usually are in other posts here).
    oversight?