Joshua Ince, Krishnamurthy Prasad, Karamat Subhani, Alan Duffy, Nisa Salim
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Reducing the weight and profile of machinery and robotics is currently a prime challenge for materials scientists and engineers alike. Solving this challenge could lead to an improvement in space travel feasibility, manufacturing capability, and the birth of new medical interventions and technologies altogether. LCEs are currently considered to hold good potential as artificial muscles due to their unique molecular structure. With the recent boom in materials science and the emergence of advanced fabrication techniques, LCE-based artificial muscles/flexible actuators are at the cusp of commercialization. LCEs can now be fabricated into several different forms (films, fibers, and 3D printed arbitrary shapes). Furthermore, LCE artificial muscles fabricated using these advanced techniques can also be functionalized so that they can controllably be triggered into actuating via stimuli such as light or electrical currents. This has led to reports of several LCE-based artificial muscles which boast impressive performance as artificial muscles. For example, recently certain Joule heating LCE fibers can directly be stimulated into actuation via the application of electrical currents and can actuate on sub-second time frames and outperform human skeletal muscles in terms of actuation stress. Given this, whilst currently there are no commercial applications of LCEs as artificial muscles in robotics, we believe that LCEs are poised to soon be directly applicable as artificial muscles in the broader field of robotics, which inspired us to author this review. This review presents an overview of the mechanisms, synthetic methods, and alignment methods for LCEs. In addition, we provide the latest achievements in fabrication techniques and means of inducing/controlling the actuation of LCEs. We do so in the aspiration that this review can bridge the gap that exists between academia and industry on the topic of LCEs.
Graphical abstract
Illustration of LCEs acting as artificial muscles in robotics.
期刊介绍：
Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials is a leading international journal that promotes interdisciplinary collaboration among materials scientists, engineers, chemists, biologists, and physicists working on composites, including nanocomposites. Our aim is to facilitate rapid scientific communication in this field.
The journal publishes high-quality research on various aspects of composite materials, including materials design, surface and interface science/engineering, manufacturing, structure control, property design, device fabrication, and other applications. We also welcome simulation and modeling studies that are relevant to composites. Additionally, papers focusing on the relationship between fillers and the matrix are of particular interest.
Our scope includes polymer, metal, and ceramic matrices, with a special emphasis on reviews and meta-analyses related to materials selection. We cover a wide range of topics, including transport properties, strategies for controlling interfaces and composition distribution, bottom-up assembly of nanocomposites, highly porous and high-density composites, electronic structure design, materials synergisms, and thermoelectric materials.
Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials follows a rigorous single-blind peer-review process to ensure the quality and integrity of the published work.
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