Bio‐inspired Design and Additive Manufacturing of Soft Materials,Machines, Robots,and Haptic Interfaces

Soft materials possess several distinctive characteristics, such as controllable deformation, infinite degrees of freedom, and self‐assembly, which make them promising candidates for building soft machines, robots, and haptic interfaces. In this Review, we give an overview of recent advances in these areas, with an emphasis on two specific topics: bio‐inspired design and additive manufacturing. Biology is an abundant source of inspiration for functional materials and systems that mimic the function or mechanism of biological tissues, agents, and behaviors. Additive manufacturing has enabled the fabrication of materials and structures prevalent in biology, thereby leading to more‐capable soft robots and machines. We believe that bio‐inspired design and additive manufacturing have been, and will continue to be, important tools for the design of soft robots.     

Identifying the viscoelastic properties of soft matter from the indentation response of a hard film-soft substrate system

The indentation technique is widely used in measuring the mechanical properties of soft matter at the microscale or nanoscale,but still faces challenges by these unique properties as well as the consequent strong surface adhesion, including the strong nonlinear effect, unclear judgment of the contact point, difficulties in estimating the contact area, and the risk of the indenter piercing the sample. Here we propose a two-step method to solve these problems: lay a hard film on a soft matter, and obtain the viscoelastic properties of this soft matter through the indentation response of this composite structure. We first establish a theoretical indentation model of the hard film-soft substrate system based on the theory of plates, elastic-viscoelastic correspondence principle and Boltzmann superposition principle. To verify the correctness of this method, we measure the mechanical properties of the methyl vinyl silicone rubber(MVSR) covered by a Cu nanofilm. Finally, we test the effectiveness and error sensitivity of this method with the finite element method(FEM). The results show that our method can accurately measure the mechanical properties of soft matter, while effectively circumventing the problems of the traditional indentation technique.     

Magneto-sensitive smart soft material and magnetorheological mechanism

磁敏智能软材料是一类将微米或纳米尺度的磁性颗粒分散在不同基体中制备而成的多功能复合材料.由于其流变性能在外磁场的调控下可以实现连续、快速、可逆的改变,因此在建筑、振动控制和汽车工业等领域得到了广泛地应用.本文首先介绍了磁敏智能软材料发展历史及分类,分析了不同种类的磁敏智能软材料的特点和存在的科学问题;然后从实验和理论两个方面讨论了磁流变机理的研究现状;最后从实际应用的角度对这类材料未来的发展方向进行了展望.     

Green solvent approach for printable large deformation thermoplastic elastomer based piezoresistive sensors and their suitability for biomedical applications

Composites based on biocompatible thermoplastic elastomer styrene‐ethylene/butylene‐styrene (SEBS) as matrix and multi‐walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) as nanofillers show excellent mechanical and piezoresistive properties from low to large deformations. The MWCNT/SEBS composites have been prepared following a green solvent approach, to extend their range of applicability to biomedical applications. The obtained composites with 2, 4, and 5 wt % MWCNT content provide suitable piezoresistive response up to 80% deformation with a piezoresistive sensibility near 2.7, depending on the applied strain and MWCNT content. Composite sensors were also developed by spray and screen printing and integrated with an electronic data acquisition system with RF communication. The possibility to accurately control the composites properties and performance by varying MWCNT content, viscosity, and mechanical properties of the polymer matrix, shows the large potential of the system for the development of large deformation printable piezoresistive sensors. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2016 , 54, 2092–2103     

软体操作器结构设计及植入式光纤传感方法

为解决微创手术软体机器人的形状实时监测问题,将刻有三个光纤布拉格光栅的单根光纤植入软体操作器中,利用其研究柔性硅胶软体操作器光纤传感和三维形状重构方法。进行了软体操作器的结构设计及模型建立,并对光纤光栅波长漂移量和软体操作器弯曲曲率之间的关系进行了理论分析;通过实验验证了软体操作器结构设计及其模型建立的有效性,测试了软体操作器不同弯曲状态下三个FBG传感器的反射谱特征及其变化规律;通过分析三个FBG传感器的中心波长漂移量,利用线性插值算法计算出软体操作器在不同弯曲状态下的曲率等参数,并结合曲线拟合方法实现软体操作器的三维形状重构。实验结果表明:植入式光纤光栅传感方法可以实现硅胶软体手术操作器的三维形状传感,在微创外科手术领域具有广阔的应用前景。     

基于饱依丁-汤姆逊模型的软岩损伤蠕变模型

为更加准确地描述深部软岩的蠕变全过程,以饱依丁-汤姆逊模型为基础,将损伤变量引入到蠕变方程中,并构造了可描述加速蠕变阶段的模型元件,通过串联得到了新的蠕变模型。结果表明:该模型能够较好地描述软岩的衰减蠕变、稳态蠕变、加速蠕变阶段。用该模型对泥质页岩的蠕变试验结果进行数据拟合对比,结果显示该模型的拟合曲线与实验曲线基本吻合,拟合度为0.99733,能够很好地反映出软岩蠕变的特性,适合用于描述深部软岩的蠕变行为。     

Pair correlation function and freezing transitions in a two-dimensional system of model ultrasoft colloids

Density functional theory (DFT) of freezing has been used to investigate the freezing transitions in a system of colloidal particles confined to a two-dimensional plane. The particles interact via a model Hertzian type potential of varying softness. The pair-correlation functions (PCFs) needed as input structural information in DFT are calculated by solving hypernetted chain (HNC) integral equation theory. The PCFs thus obtained have been compared with those obtained through experiment and simulations and are found to be in good qualitative agreement. We found that the PCFs are sensitive to the softness of the potential: showing splitting of pair-correlation peak in the harder case and anomalous non-monotonic density dependence in the softer case. Using the common tangent construction method, we have also proposed the fluid-triangular solid phase diagrams in the temperature-density plane. We found that the phase diagram exhibit solid-fluid coexistence region whose thickness decreases with the increasing temperature as well as with increasing softness of the potential. In the temperature and density range of our calculation, DFT fails to produce any reentrance in the phase diagram.     

Dynamic analysis and regulation of the flexible pipe conveying fluid with a hard-magnetic soft segment

Applied Mathematics and Mechanics - The recently developed hard-magnetic soft (HMS) materials can play a significant role in the actuation and control of medical devices, soft robots, flexible...     

Yield enhancement of elliptical high harmonics driven by bicircular laser pulses

We theoretically investigate the yield enhancement of elliptical high harmonics in the interaction of molecules with bicircular laser pulses by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. It is shown that by adjusting the relative intensity ratio of the two bicircular field components in specific ranges the yield of the molecular high harmonics for the plateau and cutoff regions can be respectively enhanced. To analyze this enhancement phenomenon, we calculate the weights of the electron classical trajectories. Additionally, we also study the ellipticity distribution of harmonics for different intensity ratios. We find that these enhanced harmonics are elliptically polarized, which we mainly attribute to the recombination dipole moment of the major weighted trajectories. These enhanced elliptical extreme ultraviolet and soft x-ray radiations may serve as essential tools for exploring the ultrafast dynamics in magnetic materials and chiral media.     

基于LSTM的浮选钼精矿品位软测量模型

战略性稀有金属钼矿品位低,组分复杂、嵌布粒度细等特点,其有价金属分离回收难。浮选作为微细粒钼矿分离回收的主要选矿方法之一,其浮选钼精矿品位一直是选厂的关键性产品指标。国内大多数选厂采取轮班制采样,人工化验得到精矿品位结果,但此方式严重滞后于浮选工艺,难以满足对生产过程进行实时监测和操作指导。LSTM是一种特殊的循环神经网络,引入门机制有效的传递或选择性遗忘长时间序列中的信息,解决RNN中的长期依赖、梯度消失和爆炸问题。本文分析整理东坡选厂中各平台源数据,结合选厂浮选工艺及机理,筛选出多个影响浮选钼精矿品位的变量作为模型输入;将输入变量进行异常值判定,缺失值填充和数据降噪等数据预处理,建立高质量浮选钼精矿品位数据库;软测量模型采用PyCharm软件编码,使用BatchNorm批量规范化处理样本数据,加入Dropout正则化防止过拟合,建立基于LSTM的浮选钼精矿品位软测量模型,通过前向传播算法更新神经网络结构参数,并于Linear模型和CNN模型的预测性能指标结果比较。结果表明：基于LSTM的浮选钼精矿品位软测量模型预测准确度高,样本数据误差波动平稳,浮动范围小,模型泛化能力强,模型平均绝对百分比误差MAPE为1.13%,均方根误差RMSE为0.7049%,决定系数R2为0.8763,实现了浮选钼精矿品位的在线预测。