4D Printing of Morphing Soft Materials Inspired by Nature

Soft materials in the plant and animal kingdoms are often programmed to morph, adapt and interact with the surrounding environment to perform vital biological functions. Examples range broadly from the morphing of plant units to release seeds under optimum weather conditions to the stimulated motion of animal muscular systems for dexterous manipulation. While the idea of replicating dynamic biological functionalities in artificial systems has attracted scientists and engineers for many years, the advent of 4D printing opens numerous new opportunities for the fabrication of bioinspired morphing materials thus far inaccessible using conventional manufacturing. In this talk, I will show how multimaterial 4D printing can be utilized to digitally fabricate synthetic materials whose dynamic response is programmed within the material’s bioinspired architecture. Because of their direct implications in robotic and actuation systems, particular attention will be given to morphing systems that not only change their geometry upon external stimuli but that can also carry mechanical load to perform manipulation tasks. Understanding the physical mechanisms underlying the dynamics of such morphing systems should provide powerful tools for the design and fabrication of 4D printed objects with programmable material architectures.