Reprogrammable snapping morphogenesis in ribbon-cluster meta-units using stored elastic energy
Source abstract
Abstract
Snapping, driven by stored elastic energy, enables versatile and rapid shape changes in nature; yet replicating such autonomous, reprogrammable morphogenesis in free-standing volumetric structures remains elusive. Here we report a lantern-shaped ribbon-cluster meta-unit that harnesses programmable and reprogrammable elastic energy to achieve over 13 distinct volumetric snapping morphologies from a single unit. Governed by three Euler angles, the meta-unit post-fabrication offers a tunable mechanical design space spanning up to quadrastable states. Unlike single-ribbon or mechanism-based designs, our system autonomously selects snapping pathways via nastic coupling between multiple ribbons, enabling the inverse design of complex snapping morphologies. We harness magnetically actuated bud-to-bloom and tristable morphogenesis to enable fast, non-invasive grasping and remote flow regulation in confined environments. These results establish a general framework for architected materials with programmable shape, stability and function, offering potential applications in soft robotics, deployable devices and mechanical logic.
Source: europepmc · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Advanced Materials and Mechanics · Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence · Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
References (44)
Show source-provided references
1. Forterre, Y., Skotheim, J. M., Dumais, J. & Mahadevan, L. How the Venus flytrap snaps. Nature 433, 421–425 (2005).10.1038/nature03185 ↗
2. Vincent, O. et al. Ultra-fast underwater suction traps. Proc. R. Soc. B 278, 2909–2914 (2011).10.1098/rspb.2010.2292 ↗
3. Aubin, C. A. et al. Towards enduring autonomous robots via embodied energy. Nature 602, 393–402 (2022).10.1038/s41586-021-04138-2 ↗
4. Xia, N. et al. Dynamic morphological transformations in soft architected materials via buckling instability encoded heterogeneous magnetization. Nat. Commun. 13, 7514 (2022).
5. Bertoldi, K., Vitelli, V., Christensen, J. & van Hecke, M. Flexible mechanical metamaterials. Nat. Rev. Mater. 2, 17066 (2017).10.1038/natrevmats.2017.66 ↗
6. Kim, Y., van den Berg, J. & Crosby, A. J. Autonomous snapping and jumping polymer gels. Nat. Mater. 20, 1695–1701 (2021).10.1038/s41563-020-00909-w ↗
7. Hwang, M. & Arrieta, A. F. Solitary waves in bistable lattices with stiffness grading: augmenting propagation control. Phys. Rev. E 98, 042205 (2018).10.1103/PhysRevE.98.042205 ↗
8. Melancon, D., Gorissen, B., Garcia-Mora, C. J., Hoberman, C. & Bertoldi, K. Multistable inflatable origami structures at the metre scale. Nature 592, 545–550 (2021).10.1038/s41586-021-03407-4 ↗
9. Chen, T., Pauly, M. & Reis, P. M. A reprogrammable mechanical metamaterial with stable memory. Nature 589, 386–390 (2021).10.1038/s41586-020-03123-5 ↗
10. Jiang, Y., Korpas, L. M. & Raney, J. R. Bifurcation-based embodied logic and autonomous actuation. Nat. Commun. 10, 128 (2019).
11. Chi, Y. et al. Bistable and multistable actuators for soft robots: structures, materials, and functionalities. Adv. Mater. 34, 2110384 (2022).10.1002/adma.202110384 ↗
12. Tang, Y. et al. Leveraging elastic instabilities for amplified performance: spine-inspired high-speed and high-force soft robots. Sci. Adv. 6, eaaz6912 (2020).
13. Zhai, Z., Wang, Y., Lin, K., Wu, L. & Jiang, H. In situ stiffness manipulation using elegant curved origami. Sci. Adv. 6, eabe2000 (2020).10.1126/sciadv.abe2000 ↗
14. Shah, D. et al. Shape changing robots: bioinspiration, simulation, and physical realization. Adv. Mater. 33, e2002882 (2021).
15. Ramachandran, V., Bartlett, M. D., Wissman, J. & Majidi, C. Elastic instabilities of a ferroelastomer beam for soft reconfigurable electronics. Extreme Mech. Lett. 9, 282–290 (2016).10.1016/j.eml.2016.08.007 ↗
16. Rafsanjani, A., Akbarzadeh, A. & Pasini, D. Snapping mechanical metamaterials under tension. Adv. Mater. 27, 5931–5935 (2015).10.1002/adma.201502809 ↗
17. Zhao, Y. et al. Twisting for soft intelligent autonomous robot in unstructured environments. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 119, e2200265119 (2022).
18. Sano, T. G. & Wada, H. Twist-induced snapping in a bent elastic rod and ribbon. Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 114301 (2019).10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.114301 ↗
19. Zhang, X. et al. Kirigami-based metastructures with programmable multistability. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 119, e2117649119 (2022).
20. Zhang, H., Wu, J., Fang, D. & Zhang, Y. Hierarchical mechanical metamaterials built with scalable tristable elements for ternary logic operation and amplitude modulation. Sci. Adv. 7, eabf1966 (2021).
21. Liu, K., Pratapa, P. P., Misseroni, D., Tachi, T. & Paulino, G. H. Triclinic metamaterials by tristable origami with reprogrammable frustration. Adv. Mater. 34, 2107998 (2022).10.1002/adma.202107998 ↗
22. Chen, T., Panetta, J., Schnaubelt, M. & Pauly, M. Bistable auxetic surface structures. ACM Trans. Graph. 40, 39 (2021).
23. Stein-Montalvo, L. et al. Efficient snap-through of spherical caps by applying a localized curvature stimulus. Eur. Phys. J. E 45, 3 (2022).10.1140/epje/s10189-021-00156-0 ↗
24. Zheng, Y., Lai, Y., Hu, Y. & Cai, S. Rayleigh–Taylor instability in a confined elastic soft cylinder. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 131, 221–229 (2019).10.1016/j.jmps.2019.07.006 ↗
25. He, Q., Zheng, Y., Wang, Z., He, X. & Cai, S. Anomalous inflation of a nematic balloon. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 142, 104013 (2020).10.1016/j.jmps.2020.104013 ↗
26. Yasuda, H., Tachi, T., Lee, M. & Yang, J. Origami-based tunable truss structures for non-volatile mechanical memory operation. Nat. Commun. 8, 962 (2017).10.1038/s41467-017-00670-w ↗
27. Novelino, L. S., Ze, Q., Wu, S., Paulino, G. H. & Zhao, R. Untethered control of functional origami microrobots with distributed actuation. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117, 24096–24101 (2020).10.1073/pnas.2013292117 ↗
28. Yu, T., Marmo, F., Cesarano, P. & Adriaenssens, S. Continuous modeling of creased annuli with tunable bistable and looping behaviors. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 120, e2209048120 (2023).10.1073/pnas.2209048120 ↗
29. Lu, L., Dai, J., Leanza, S., Zhao, R. R. & Hutchinson, J. W. Multiple equilibrium states of a curved-sided hexagram: part I—stability of states. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 180, 105406 (2023).10.1016/j.jmps.2023.105406 ↗
30. Lu, L., Leanza, S., Dai, J., Hutchinson, J. W. & Zhao, R. R. Multistability of segmented rings by programming natural curvature. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 121, e2405744121 (2024).10.1073/pnas.2405744121 ↗
31. Smith, M. L., Yanega, G. M. & Ruina, A. Elastic instability model of rapid beak closure in hummingbirds. J. Theor. Biol. 282, 41–51 (2011).10.1016/j.jtbi.2011.05.007 ↗
32. Gomez, M., Moulton, D. E. & Vella, D. Critical slowing down in purely elastic ‘snap-through’ instabilities. Nat. Phys. 13, 142–145 (2017).10.1038/nphys3915 ↗
33. Huang, W., Yu, T., Vella, D., Hsia, K. J. & Liu, M. Exploiting dynamic bifurcation in elastic ribbons for mode skipping and selection. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 190, 105721 (2024).10.1016/j.jmps.2024.105721 ↗
34. Yang, S. et al. ‘Cut-and-paste’ manufacture of multiparametric epidermal sensor systems. Adv. Mater. 27, 6423–6430 (2015).10.1002/adma.201502386 ↗
35. Timoshenko, S. & Gere, J. M. Theory of Elastic Stability 2nd edn (McGraw-Hill, 1961).
36. Efrati, E., Pocivavsek, L., Meza, R., Lee, K. Y. & Witten, T. Confined disclinations: exterior versus material constraints in developable thin elastic sheets. Phys. Rev. E 91, 022404 (2014).10.1103/PhysRevE.91.022404 ↗
37. Sadik, S. & Dias, M. On local kirigami mechanics I: isometric conical solutions. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 151, 104370 (2021).10.1016/j.jmps.2021.104370 ↗
38. Frenzel, T., Kadic, M. & Wegener, M. Three-dimensional mechanical metamaterials with a twist. Science 358, 1072–1074 (2017).10.1126/science.aao4640 ↗
39. Sinatra, N. et al. Ultragentle manipulation of delicate structures using a soft robotic gripper. Sci. Robot. 4, eaax5425 (2019).10.1126/scirobotics.aax5425 ↗
40. Hong, Y. et al. Boundary curvature guided programmable shape-morphing kirigami sheets. Nat. Commun. 13, 530 (2022).
41. Yang, Y., Vella, K. & Holmes, D. Grasping with kirigami shells. Sci. Robot. 6, eabd6426 (2021).
42. Kang, G. et al. Grasping through dynamic weaving with entangled closed loops. Nat. Commun. 14, 4633 (2023).
43. Kim, Y., Parada, G. A., Liu, S. & Zhao, X. Ferromagnetic soft continuum robots. Sci. Robot. 4, eaax7329 (2019).
44. Rothemund, P. et al. A soft, bistable valve for autonomous control of soft actuators. Sci. Robot. 3, eaar7986 (2018).10.1126/scirobotics.aar7986 ↗