Engineers from the University of Colorado Boulder and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
The researchers studied how thewhen heated form liquid crystal elastomers. This is a class of materials that is a hardened and elastic version of liquid crystals. Instead of the expected change in shape, during the experiment, the record simply jumped up and fell off the table.
Observation (top) and simulation of heating (bottom) when jumping an LCD elastomer. Image: Hebner et al., Science Advances
Further analysis revealed the reason for thisspontaneous movement. The film, comparable in thickness to the contact lens used during the experiment, consisted of three layers. When heated, the top two layers shrink faster than the bottom. As a result, the film gradually deforms, tending to take the shape of a cone.
As the material stress increases, this coneflips over, hits the surface and rises sharply into the air. In a series of experiments, the researchers showed that in just 6 ms the film rises to a height 200 times its own thickness. Engineers also found that by controlling the structure of the material, it can be made to jump when cooled rather than heated and directed in the desired direction.
Experiment with bouncing film. Video: University of Colorado Boulder
The authors of the development believe that as it develops, this technology can be used to control the movements and jumps of soft and flexible robots.
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