Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a method for printing on a 3D printer
In his work, published in ScienceAdvances, engineers have printed "architectural materials" - gratings whose mechanical properties depend solely on the architecture. For example, changing the size or shape of the cells in the lattice makes the material more or less flexible.
Crystalline lattice structures with air-filled channels. The recesses in the middle of the gratings are the openings of the sensors. Image: MIT News
Researchers include air channels instructure using 3D printing with digital light processing. In this method, a structure is pulled from a puddle of resin and solidified into the desired shape by exposure to light. The image is projected onto a liquid material, and the areas where the light hits harden.
The difficulty in creating hollow channels is that the resin gets stuckTo solve this problem, the scientists used a combination of compressed air, vacuum, and sophisticated purification to remove excess resin.
When the finished structure is moved or squeezed, the sensory channels are deformed, and the volume of air inside changes.Researchers measure pressure drops and determine how the material deforms.
A soft robotic finger made from two cylinders made up of HSA auxetics. Image: MIT News
To show the possibilities of using the technology, the scientists 3D printed a soft robot from HSA auxetic.It is a material with a negative Poisson's ratio, which is used in robotics.When stretched, such materials become thicker rather than thinner in a direction perpendicular to the force applied.
The created robot could perform several movements,including bending, twisting and elongation. The robot performed various movements for more than 18 hours, and the researchers used data from "fluid sensors" to train a neural network that accurately predicted the robot's movements.
We can take any material that we canprint on a 3D printer, and run channels through it to get a sensitive structure. And if you use really complex materials, you can get movement, perception and structure at the same time.
Lillian Chin, co-author of the study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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