Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a new smart material with a dual-response feature, that is, shape-memory and color-changing. The unique design paves the way for a wide variety of potential applications, including clothing that warms up while you walk from the car to the office in winter and vehicle bumpers that return to their original shape after a collision.
Stimuli-responsive materials, as a novel category of smart materials, are able to change their certain properties in response to an external stimulus such as heat, light, pH, moisture, and electric, as well as magnetic fields.
To date, most researchers have mainly focused on single-responsive materials, that is, shape-memory or color-changing.
However, it is critical to design and engineer multi-SRMs to take SRMs steps forward in today’s technologically advanced world.
Multi-stimuli-responsiveness can introduce more new functions to smart systems such as camouflage, bionics, actuators, and sensors.
“As a wearable material alone, it has almost infinite potential in AI, robotics and virtual reality games and experiences,” said University of Waterloo’s Professor Milad Kamkar, co-senior author of the study.
“Imagine feeling warmth or a physical trigger eliciting a more in-depth adventure in the virtual world.”
The novel fabric design is a product of the happy union of soft and hard materials, featuring a combination of highly engineered polymer composites and stainless steel in a woven structure.
Professor Kamkar and colleagues created a device similar to a traditional loom to weave the smart fabric.
The resulting process is extremely versatile, enabling design freedom and macro-scale control of the fabric’s properties.
The fabric can also be activated by a lower voltage of electricity than previous systems, making it more energy-efficient and cost-effective.
In addition, lower voltage allows integration into smaller, more portable devices, making it suitable for use…
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