US Army develops self-healing and shape-shifting material that can lead to ‘Terminator-style’ drones morphing to adapt to new threats
- The U.S. military is in the early stages of designing a self-healing, shape-shifting material
- The material will have features of the T-1000 character of Terminator 2
- It has a shape memory behavior that allows it to be remembered and returned to shapes
- The Army plans to add the polymer material to UAV components
The US military draws inspiration from the popular movie ‘Terminator 2’ in designing materials that can shift shape and heal autonomously.
Made of polymer, the 3D printable component has a dynamic bond that allows it to go from liquid to liquid several times.
The new material also features a unique behavior of memory in form, allowing users to program and trigger it to revert to a previous form.
The military group anticipates the innovation used to create unmanned aerial vehicles and shape-shifting robotic platforms.
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The US military draws inspiration from the popular science fiction film ‘Terminator 2’ in designing materials that can shift shape and heal autonomously. Made of polymer, the 3D printable component has a dynamic bond that allows it to flow from liquid to liquid several times.
The Army has partnered with researchers at Texas A&M for this project, which aims to be a future platform suitable for air and ground missions.
The team also wants the material with ‘the reconfiguration characteristics of the T-1000 character in the Hollywood movie, Terminator 2,’ said Dr. Frank Gardea, an aeronautical mechanic and lead researcher of this work for the U.S. Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory.
In the film, the Terminator is made of liquid metal that is able to shift shape, imitate others and heal itself, which is the inspiration for the new material.
“We want a system of materials to provide structure, sensing and response at the same time,” Gardea continued.
The new material also features a unique shape memory behavior, allowing users to be programmed and trigger it to revert to a previous form
A new family of materials can be made softer or harder by changing the number of crosslinking molecules, thanks to a discovery by U.S. Army researchers
The material was first designed to respond to temperature, which is easier for lab tests, but the team understands applying the stimulus in the real world will not be as easy as practical.
Gardea said it recently added light-responsive technology that allows users to remotely control and apply temperatures.
Polymers are made of repeating units, such as links on a chain.
The team also wants the material to have ‘the reconfiguration characteristics of the T-1000 character in the Hollywood movie, Terminator 2
For softer polymers, these chains are only lightly connected to each other via crosslinks. The more crosslinks between chains, the more rigid the material becomes.
‘Most crosslinked materials, especially those printed with 3-D, have a solid shape, which means that once your part is produced the material cannot be reprocessed or melted,’ Gardea said.
The military material is provided with a specific band that allows it to shift from liquid to solid and is 3D printing and recycling.
The team has also incorporated a shape memory behavior for the design, allowing users to program the material so that it can remember previous shapes and return to that specific shape when it is triggered.
The military group anticipates the innovation used to create unmanned aerial vehicles and shape-shifting robotic platforms
Dr Bryan Glaz, associate chief scientist for the Laboratory of the Vehicle Technology Directorate, said that much of the previous work on adaptive materials was for materials systems that are too soft for structural applications or otherwise unsuitable for platform development, so they turning to epoxy, in some ways, is groundbreaking.
Glaz said the research team’s scientific advancement ‘is a first step along a long path towards realizing the scientific potential for deep future platforms’.
The research and material is still in the discovery phase, but the team has a 3D-printed material that could be added to components of unmanned aerial photographs like rotocraft.
Gardea said the immediate next steps are to improve acting behavior and cure.
The researchers also want to introduce multi-responsiveness and have the material respond to stimuli outside of temperature and light.
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