Abstract
Wool has a long history of use in textiles throughout human civilization. Many smart functions such as reversible shape changes to various stimuli have been demonstrated in the last few years. However, the force-related characteristics are still imperfectly recognized, although they are expected to be used as actuators due to their biological origins and broad applications. Herein, we investigated the feasibility of wools in performing actuating ability through its intrinsic structures and fabrication methods. The diverse modes of contractive forces were obtained in wool materials including platform-like, double-peak, and slope-like shapes, where a molecular model was also presented to trace the origins of stress evolution. After that, a polymeric blend was created to modify the wool materials and a dissimilar performance of stress production was achieved, a square stress mode with stable manner and maintenance, for broad applications in a more efficient way. It is believed that these actuating properties extracted from natural hairs have a large potential in current smart applications and lay down new inspiration in designing actuators.
Highlights
Smart textiles are beginning to thrive in the field of artificial intelligence [1,2,3,4,5,6] including actuators [7], energy-harvesting fabrics, energy-storing fabrics [2], flexible sensors with color/temperature/humidity sensing abilities [4,8,9], etc
It was found that αactinin could crystallize [19] and possesses twisted antiparallel structures [18]. Based on these similarities between the two structures of wool and muscle fiber [20], we assumed that wools and Polymers 2020, 12, 1464 wool yarns could acquire analogous actuating abilities, which could be further applied to artificial muscle
It was proven that the multi-modal isometric stress could be realized, and wool yarn/polymeric yarn blend could be used to further improve the utility
Summary
Smart textiles are beginning to thrive in the field of artificial intelligence [1,2,3,4,5,6] including actuators [7], energy-harvesting fabrics, energy-storing fabrics [2], flexible sensors with color/temperature/humidity sensing abilities [4,8,9], etc. It was found that αactinin could crystallize [19] and possesses twisted antiparallel structures [18] Based on these similarities between the two structures of wool and muscle fiber [20], we assumed that wools and Polymers 2020, 12, 1464 wool yarns could acquire analogous actuating abilities, which could be further applied to artificial muscle. Some similarities energy dissipation and good thermal-contraction ability, which could be taken advantage of to design found between animal hairs and skeletal muscle (Scheme 1b) [17] including the hierarchical structure, athe wool yarn/polymeric yarn blend make up for the deficiency. This study, the thermomechanical existence of a dynamic bond, to crystal-like structure, and theIntrainable component like actin in properties including isometric contraction and isothermal tensile hysteresis cycles of raw wool muscle, which have provided a lot of inspiration to well utilize the natural ones. It was proven that the multi-modal isometric stress could be realized, and wool yarn/polymeric yarn blend could be used to further improve the utility
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