TY - JOUR
T1 - Robust Bicontinuous Elastomer–Metal Foam Composites with Highly Tunable Stiffness
AU - Sharifi, Siavash
AU - Mohammadi Nasab, Amir
AU - Chen, Pei En
AU - Liao, Yiliang
AU - Jiao, Yang
AU - Shan, Wanliang
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by a differential fee assistantship provided by University of Nevada, Reno to S.S., and start‐up funds provided by Syracuse University to W.S. This work was also supported by National Science Foundation under awards CMMI‐1830388 and DMR‐2020277.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.
PY - 2022/8
Y1 - 2022/8
N2 - Herein, a new class of robust bicontinuous elastomer–metal foam composites with highly tunable mechanical stiffness is proposed, fabricated, characterized, and demonstrated. The smart composite is a bicontinuous network of two foams, one metallic made of a low melting point alloy (LMPA) and the other elastomeric made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The stiffness of the composite can be tuned by inducing phase changes in its LMPA component. Below the melting point of the LMPA, Young's modulus of the smart composites is ≈1 GPa, whereas above the melting point of the LMPA it is ≈1 MPa. Thus, a sharp stiffness change of ≈1000× can be realized through the proposed bicontinuous foam composite structure, which is higher than all available robust smart composites. Effective medium theory is also used to predict the Young's modulus of the bicontinuous smart composites, which generates reasonable agreement with experimentally measured Young's modulus of the smart composites. Finally, the use of these smart materials as a smart joint in a robotic arm is also demonstrated.
AB - Herein, a new class of robust bicontinuous elastomer–metal foam composites with highly tunable mechanical stiffness is proposed, fabricated, characterized, and demonstrated. The smart composite is a bicontinuous network of two foams, one metallic made of a low melting point alloy (LMPA) and the other elastomeric made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The stiffness of the composite can be tuned by inducing phase changes in its LMPA component. Below the melting point of the LMPA, Young's modulus of the smart composites is ≈1 GPa, whereas above the melting point of the LMPA it is ≈1 MPa. Thus, a sharp stiffness change of ≈1000× can be realized through the proposed bicontinuous foam composite structure, which is higher than all available robust smart composites. Effective medium theory is also used to predict the Young's modulus of the bicontinuous smart composites, which generates reasonable agreement with experimentally measured Young's modulus of the smart composites. Finally, the use of these smart materials as a smart joint in a robotic arm is also demonstrated.
KW - LMPA foam
KW - elastomer
KW - smart materials
KW - soft robotics
KW - tunable stiffness
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U2 - 10.1002/adem.202101533
DO - 10.1002/adem.202101533
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85123828498
SN - 1438-1656
VL - 24
JO - Advanced Engineering Materials
JF - Advanced Engineering Materials
IS - 8
M1 - 2101533
ER -