Versatile Building Blocks with Surprising Mechanical Properties

Researchers at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms have created tiny building blocks that exhibit a variety of unique mechanical properties, such as the ability to produce a twisting motion when squeezed. These subunits could potentially be assembled by tiny robots into a

BY Realty Plus
Published - Friday, 20 Nov, 2020

Versatile Building Blocks with Surprising Mechanical Properties

Researchers at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms have created tiny building blocks that exhibit a variety of unique mechanical properties, such as the ability to produce a twisting motion when squeezed. These subunits could potentially be assembled by tiny robots into a nearly limitless variety of objects with built-in functionality, including vehicles, large industrial parts, or specialized robots that can be repeatedly reassembled in different forms. The researchers created four different types of these subunits, called voxels (a 3D variation on the pixels of a 2D image). Each voxel type exhibits special properties not found in typical natural materials, and in combination they can be used to make devices that respond to environmental stimuli in predictable ways. Examples might include airplane wings or turbine blades that respond to changes in air pressure or wind speed by changing their overall shape. The findings, which detail the creation of a family of discrete “mechanical metamaterials,” are described in a paper published today in the journal Science Advances, authored by recent MIT doctoral graduate Benjamin Jenett PhD ’20, Professor Neil Gershenfeld, and four others. “This remarkable, fundamental, and beautiful synthesis promises to revolutionize the cost, tailorability, and functional efficiency of ultralight, materials-frugal structures,” says Amory Lovins, an adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and founder of Rocky Mountain Institute, who was not associated with this work. Metamaterials get their name because their large-scale properties are different from the microlevel properties of their component materials. They are used in electromagnetics and as “architected” materials, which are designed at the level of their microstructure. With this approach, engineers should be able to build structures incorporating a wide range of material properties and produce them all using the same shared production and assembly processes.