Mechanical engineering articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • Article |

    Limited datasets hinder the accurate prediction of DNA origami structures. A data-driven and physics-informed approach for model training is presented using a graph neural network to facilitate the rapid virtual prototyping of DNA-based nanostructures.

    • Chien Truong-Quoc
    • , Jae Young Lee
    •  & Do-Nyun Kim

  • Research Briefing |

    Metal monochalcogenides — a class of van der Waals layered semiconductors — can exhibit ultrahigh plasticity. Investigation of the deformation mechanism reveals that on mechanical loading, these materials undergo local phase transitions that, coupled with the concurrent generation of a microcrack network, give rise to the ultrahigh plasticity.

  • News & Views |

    An additively manufactured AlSi10Mg alloy shows high fatigue strength, even close to its tensile strength, for micro-sized samples. The fine cells in its inherent three-dimensional network are considered as cages to limit damage accumulation.

    • Christopher Hutchinson

  • Review Article |

    This Review discusses recent progress in bioinspired nanocomposite design, emphasizing the role of hierarchical structuring at distinct length scales to create multifunctional, lightweight and robust structural materials for diverse technological applications.

    • Dhriti Nepal
    • , Saewon Kang
    •  & Hendrik Heinz

  • News & Views |

    Pine cones deform ultraslowly as humidity changes, which is mostly driven by the spring-shaped and square microtubular heterostructure of the vascular bundles. This mechanism inspires the development of soft actuators with imperceptible but efficient motion under environmental stimuli.

    • Cecilia Laschi
    •  & Barbara Mazzolai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A design paradigm to create robust robotic metamaterials using versatile gear clusters is demonstrated. It enables intriguing programmability of elastic properties and shape while preserving stability for intelligent machines.

    • Xin Fang
    • , Jihong Wen
    •  & Peter Gumbsch

  • Article |

    Microscale architecting enables metamaterials to achieve mechanical properties not accessible to bulk materials. Here the authors show that established design protocols for the fracture of materials need to be revised to predict the failure of these materials.

    • Angkur Jyoti Dipanka Shaikeea
    • , Huachen Cui
    •  & Vikram Sudhir Deshpande

  • News & Views |

    The giant magnetoelastic effect measured in magnetic elastomers enables new energy generators for wearable and implantable electronics.

    • Denys Makarov

  • News & Views |

    An interplay between deswelling and buckling in a polymer gel is harnessed to achieve sequential snap events for repeatable jumping motion, opening the door to autonomously moving soft robots.

    • Johannes T. B. Overvelde

  • News & Views |

    The processes of metallic asperities moving across each other, which are decisive in most machinery, have been visualized at the atomic scale, revealing unexpected behaviour especially when under tensile stress.

    • Udo D. Schwarz

  • Article |

    Porous materials can absorb energy by water infiltration, but studies at industrially relevant high-rate intrusions are rare. Here, high-rate experiments are performed on ZIFs showing high energy storage capacity, while molecular simulations allow design rules to be formulated for absorption materials.

    • Yueting Sun
    • , Sven M. J. Rogge
    •  & Jin-Chong Tan

  • Article |

    A graphene nanocomposite hydrogel showing anisotropic swelling is used to realize an electrically conducting and removable bioadhesive that improves the mechanical and electrical integration of bioelectronics devices with wet dynamic tissues.

    • Jue Deng
    • , Hyunwoo Yuk
    •  & Xuanhe Zhao

  • Article |

    Computational analysis and mechanical testing demonstrate that the skeletal system of a marine sponge has, through the course of evolution, achieved a near-optimal resistance to buckling.

    • Matheus C. Fernandes
    • , Joanna Aizenberg
    •  & Katia Bertoldi

  • News & Views |

    A three-dimensional printing approach based on the photopolymerization-induced phase separation of resins is used to fabricate complex glass structures with distinct chemical composition and porosity.

    • Dorothea Helmer
    •  & Bastian E. Rapp

  • Article |

    Geometric analysis and constrained optimization algorithms allow for the design of kirigami patterns that can be deployed into any two- or three-dimensional shape.

    • Gary P. T. Choi
    • , Levi H. Dudte
    •  & L. Mahadevan

  • Letter |

    Rewritable surface charge density gradients enable the direct, high-speed and long-distance transport of droplets on distinct surfaces without the need of additional energy input.

    • Qiangqiang Sun
    • , Dehui Wang
    •  & Xu Deng

  • Comment |

    3D printing is now widely used in aerospace, healthcare, energy, automotive and other industries. Metal printing, in particular, is the fastest growing sector, yet its development presents scientific, technological and economic challenges that must be understood and addressed.

    • T. DebRoy
    • , T. Mukherjee
    •  & W. Zhang

  • News & Views |

    A graphite and hexagonal boron nitride heterojunction enables superlubric sliding, almost independent of alignment orientation, in micrometre-sized contacts under ‘real-life’ working conditions.

    • J. G. Vilhena
    •  & Rubén Pérez

  • Article |

    A perturbative method is proposed for the systematic design of mechanical metamaterials, where each element of the discrete model is associated with individual geometric features of the metamaterial, through the weak interaction between the unit cells.

    • Kathryn H. Matlack
    • , Marc Serra-Garcia
    •  & Chiara Daraio

  • Article |

    The antifogging properties of a structured surface can be considerably enhanced if the feature size is small enough and if the feature shapes are cones rather than cylinders.

    • Timothée Mouterde
    • , Gaëlle Lehoucq
    •  & David Quéré

  • Article |

    Electrochemically induced stresses in battery electrodes leading to performance degradation are still poorly understood. In situ measurements show that stress scales proportionally with lithium intercalation rate and strain with capacity.

    • Hadi Tavassol
    • , Elizabeth M. C. Jones
    •  & Andrew A. Gewirth

  • Article |

    A large-area fabrication approach to achieve three-dimensional architectured metamaterials, with structural features spanning seven orders of magnitude, results in advanced mechanical properties, including high elasticity.

    • Xiaoyu Zheng
    • , William Smith
    •  & Christopher M. Spadaccini

  • News & Views |

    Fabrication of an ultra-strong glassy carbon nanolattice with a strut diameter of around 200 nm could stimulate the realization of advanced nanoscale architected materials.

    • Xiaoyan Li
    •  & Huajian Gao

  • Letter |

    A hydrogel-design strategy achieves transparent and conductive bonding of synthetic hydrogels to a variety of non-porous surfaces, with interfacial toughness values over 1,000 J m−2.

    • Hyunwoo Yuk
    • , Teng Zhang
    •  & Xuanhe Zhao

  • Article |

    A single, self-coiled wire is shown to exhibit a Poisson function ranging from above 1 in compression to below 0 in tension. Such material architectures may offer new functionalities in mechanical devices.

    • David Rodney
    • , Benjamin Gadot
    •  & Laurent Orgéas

  • Letter |

    Highly bendable yet unstretchable ultrathin sheets can wrap a liquid droplet to form an optimal non-spherical shape that minimizes the unwrapped interfacial area, regardless of interfacial energies and the sheet’s mechanical properties.

    • Joseph D. Paulsen
    • , Vincent Démery
    •  & Narayanan Menon

  • Article |

    Malignant phenotypes in the mammary epithelium have been correlated to increases in extracellular matrix stiffness. It is now shown that the effect of matrix stiffness in normal mammary epithelial cells can be offset by an increase in basement-membrane ligands and that both the stiffness and composition of the matrix are sensed by the β4 integrin. The results suggest that the relationship between matrix stiffness and composition is a more relevant predictor of breast-cancer progression.

    • Ovijit Chaudhuri
    • , Sandeep T. Koshy
    •  & David J. Mooney

  • News & Views |

    The friction and wear of materials is part of our everyday experience, and yet these processes are not well understood. The example of diamond highlights wear processes that result from bumping atoms, showing that the devil is indeed in the details.

    • Jay Fineberg

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