Advanced technology 4D printing enables creation of complex auto-folding structures. The researchers used smart shape memory polymer, which have ability to remember one shape regenerate into another shape by applying uniform heat.
In Wide range applications ex. unmanned air vehicle might change shape from one designed for a cruise mission to one designed for a dive these technology used.
At the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) this technology developed by researcher. It helps to generate 3D structure that consecutively folds themselves from components that had been plane or rolled into a tube for shipment.
Components used in technology reacts to stimuli like temperature, light and moisture that exactly timed to create space structures, deployable medical devices, robots, toys and a range of other structures.
It has ability to create objects that change shape in proper sequence over time is period is enabled by printing materials by dissimilar dynamic mechanical characteristics in given patterns during the 3D object.
When these components are then heated, each SMP responds at a different rate to change its form, depending on its own inner clock.
The researchers said that, “An important feature of self-folding is the management of auto-collisions, where different portions of the folding structure contact and then block more folding,”
