Low Melting Point Alloys Enabled Stiffness Tunable Advanced Materials

Abstract

AbstractStiffness tunable advanced materials have demonstrated their superiority and versatility in diverse areas, while the global pursuit of reversible, intelligent, and fast response for stiffness regulation is growing radically, leaving great challenges for traditional materials. As newly emerging functional metal material, the low melting point alloys (LMPAs) have shown encouraging potential in developing various stiffness regulation strategies owing to their excellent physicochemical and mechanical properties. This article is dedicated to presenting a comprehensive review of the LMPA‐enabled stiffness tunable materials from the aspects of material system, regulation principle and method, capability enabling mechanisms, and application scenarios. First, according to the structural differences, three kinds of LMPA‐enabled stiffness tunable material systems are evaluated. Then, the regulation strategies are elaborated from the fundamental LMPA modifications to dynamical external field controls, and the mainstream stiffness regulation modes are also combed out. Following that, the diversified applications of LMPA enabled stiffness tunable materials are systematically summarized and discussed. Finally, a perspective interpretation of the potentials and challenges of LMPA‐enabled stiffness tunable materials is provided. This article is expected to be important for guiding the future design of smart materials, functional entities, transformable robots, etc.