Using smart materials to deploy a Dark Age explorer

One of the most significant constraints on the size of objects placed into orbit is the size of the fairing used to put them there. Large telescopes must be stuffed into a relatively small fairing housing and deployed to ...

Swift 4-D printing with shape-memory polymers

Shape-memory polymers or shape-shifting materials are smart materials that have gained significant attention within materials science and biomedical engineering in recent years to build smart structures and devices. Digital ...

Crumpled sheets reveal a mechanism for glassy relaxations

We often crumple a scrap piece of paper into a ball before throwing it. This mundane action, however, creates a unique complex system with surprising mechanical properties. Take a thin plastic sheet such as cellophane and ...

Engineers develop a new kind of shape-memory material

Shape-memory metals, which can revert from one shape to a different one simply by being warmed or otherwise triggered, have been useful in a variety of applications, as actuators that can control the movement of various devices. ...

Manufacturing microscopic octopuses with a 3D printer

Although just cute little creatures at first glance, the microscopic geckos and octopuses fabricated by 3D laser printing in the molecular engineering labs at Heidelberg University could open up new opportunities in fields ...

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