Harvard’s 3D-Printed Filaments Mimic Muscle, Bending and Twisting on Command - 3DPrinting.com

• Harvard’s 3D-Printed Filaments Mimic Muscle, Bending and Twisting on Command April 30

Harvard researchers have developed a 3D printing technique that programs soft filaments to bend, twist, expand, or contract in response to heat, producing what the team calls artificial muscles. The work, published April 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, comes from the lab of Jennifer Lewis, the Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The method, called rotational multimaterial 3D printing, works by extruding two materials side by side through a rotating nozzle: an “active” liquid crystal elastomer that contracts along its molecular alignment direction when heated above a transition temperature, and a “passive” elastomer that holds its shape regardless of temperature. Bec