The elastic product with embedded magnets whose poles are color-coded red and blue. Orienting the magnets in different directions changes the metamaterials reaction. Credit: Courtesy UMass Amherst
It can absorb and release extremely large quantities of energy. Taken together, this brand-new material holds great guarantee for an extremely broad range of applications, from making it possible for robotics to have more power without utilizing extra energy, to brand-new helmets and protective products that can dissipate energy much more quickly.
” Imagine a rubber band,” says Alfred Crosby, teacher of polymer science and engineering at UMass Amherst and the papers senior author. When you stretch it past a specific point, you trigger extra energy saved in the product.
“By embedding tiny magnets into the flexible material, we can control the stage shifts of this metamaterial. And because the stage shift is foreseeable and repeatable, we can craft the metamaterial to do precisely what we desire it to do: either absorbing the energy from a large effect, or releasing fantastic quantities of energy for explosive motion.”
Reference: “Phase-transforming metamaterial with magnetic interactions” by Xudong Liang, Hongbo Fu and Alfred J. Crosby, 4 January 2022, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.DOI: 10.1073/ pnas.2118161119.
This research, which was supported by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the U.S. Army Research Office in addition to Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen (HITSZ), has applications in any circumstance where either lightning-quick responses or high-force impacts are required.
This hypothetical rubber band is made out of a new metamaterial– a substance crafted to have a home not found in naturally happening materials– that combines an elastic, rubber-like compound with tiny magnets embedded in it. This new “elasto-magnetic” material takes advantage of a physical home called a stage shift to significantly amplify the amount of energy the material can take in or launch.
A stage shift happens when a product moves from one state to another: think about water becoming steam or liquid concrete hardening into a pathway. Whenever a product shifts its stage, energy is either launched or absorbed. And stage shifts arent simply limited to changes in between liquid, strong and gaseous states– a shift can occur from one strong phase to another. A phase shift that launches energy can be harnessed as a power source, but getting sufficient energy has actually always been the tough part.
Taken together, this brand-new material holds excellent pledge for a very large array of applications, from allowing robots to have more power without utilizing additional energy, to new helmets and protective products that can dissipate energy much more quickly.
When you stretch it past a particular point, you trigger extra energy stored in the material. Whenever a material moves its phase, energy is either launched or absorbed. By using metamaterials, Crosby states that “we have actually gotten rid of these difficulties, and have not just made new products, however likewise established the design algorithms that allow these products to be programmed with specific reactions, making them foreseeable.”
” To magnify energy release or absorption, you have to craft a new structure at the molecular or even atomic level,” says Crosby. Nevertheless, this is challenging to do and even more difficult to do in a foreseeable method. However by using metamaterials, Crosby says that “we have actually conquered these obstacles, and have not just made new materials, however likewise developed the design algorithms that permit these products to be set with specific responses, making them predictable.”
“By embedding tiny magnets into the flexible material, we can manage the stage shifts of this metamaterial.