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posted by Fnord666 on Friday November 25 2016, @07:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the will-steroids-make-them-bigger dept.

Artificial muscles—materials that contract and expand somewhat like muscle fibers do—can have many applications, from robotics to components in the automobile and aviation industries. Now, MIT researchers have come up with one of the simplest and lowest-cost systems yet for developing such "muscles," in which a material reproduces some of the bending motions that natural muscle tissues perform.

The key ingredient, cheap and ubiquitous, is ordinary nylon fiber.

The new approach to harnessing this basic synthetic fiber material lies in shaping and heating the fibers in a particular way, which is described in a new paper in the journal Advanced Materials by Seyed Mirvakili, a doctoral candidate, and Ian Hunter, the George N. Hatsopoulos Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Previously, researchers had come up with the basic principle of using twisted coils of nylon filament to mimic basic linear muscle activity. They showed that for a given size and weight, such devices could extend and retract further, and store and release more energy, than natural muscles. But bending motions, such as those of human fingers and limbs, proved more challenging and had not yet been achieved in a simple and inexpensive system until the new work at MIT.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by anubi on Saturday November 26 2016, @06:05AM

    by anubi (2828) on Saturday November 26 2016, @06:05AM (#433141) Journal

    These three uses come to mind...

    1) Prosthetics

    2) Display mannequins

    3) Sex dolls.

    I think I would try to build #2 first, as I could put all the support technology in the base, and the thing does not have to be all that strong, but would probably cause quite a stir at the mall modeling the fit of the latest fashions.

    As far as its use as an actuator, electromagnetics and piezoelectrics do a pretty good job, although they do not mimic the smooth appearances of natural organisms.

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    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
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