Helical shape linen artificial muscles responsive to water

Abstract

Artificial muscles, as the name suggests, can generate contractile force and movement from another source of energy in response to an external stimulus. Moisture-responsive artificial muscles can be manufactured from commodity natural fibers for smart textile applications taking advantage of the anisotropy, low cost and skin comfort of these fibers. Here we prepared water-driven artificial muscles by twisting linen yarns into spring-like cylindrical coils. Structural evolution, including increase in diameter and decrease in length of coils, is identified as a key factor to the actuation performances of the as-fabricated muscles. Artificial muscles with a single helical configuration can generate a large, reversible contraction stroke of about 22.5% and a high gravimetric work capacity during contraction of about 110 J kg−1 work capacity, which is many times greater than animal skeletal muscles and many synthetic fiber muscles. A torque-balanced double-helix muscle was constructed from the single helical muscle. The double helix showed good reversibility and high retention of contraction stroke (∼16.5%) in cyclic actuation tests. Finally, the as-fabricated water-responsive artificial muscles were used as manipulator arm of a miniature excavator.