Researchers have created the first heat-reactive polymer material that can not only remember its current shape but also memorize new ones.
"New Material Can Fold Itself Into Hundreds of Shapes"
The new substance has transition temperatures of 70C and 130C for elasticity and plasticity, respectively.
To demonstrate its multishape capabilities, Xie's team turned a 30-millimeter square of the material into an origami masterpiece that could fold between two shapes using elasticity and change into other shapes using plasticity.
Not only did the material fold into multiple different shapes, but it could also snap between them hundreds of times with little sign of fatigue—a critical feature if the material is to be used in real-world applications, they report today in Science Advances.
Morphing Project at NASA's Langley Research Center...
‘Morphing metal’ technologies and 'shape memory alloys.'
We were staggered at the remarks on Langleys AFB website made by Anna McGowan, program manager for the Morphing Project at NASA's Langley Research Center (which is a part of this project, but not the main company).
She says:
"Among the exotic "smart" materials being developed by the Morphing Project, shape-memory alloys are relatively ordinary. Imagine seeing a bullet shot through a sheet of material, only to have the material instantly "heal" behind the bullet!
Remember, this is not science fiction. Self-healing materials actually exist, and LaRC scientists are working to unravel their secrets.
"What we did at NASA-Langley was basically dissect that material to answer the question, 'how does it do that?'" McGowan said.
"By doing so, we can actually get down to computational modeling of these materials at the molecular level. Once we understand the material's behavior at that level, then we can create designer 'smart' materials," she added.
LaRC is also developing customized variations of piezoelectric materials. These substances link electric voltage to motion. If you contort a piezoelectric material a voltage is generated. Conversely, if you apply a voltage, the material will contort.
The above statement seems odd to us.
Why would you strip down technology to see how it works if you had builtit in the first place?
Or does this mean that NASA-Langley did not make the material, but are in fact back-engineering it?
In the latest research update by Thomas J. Carey & Don R. Schmitt regarding the Roswell case, they describe up to 9 types of exotic materials variously reported by witnesses to the events of July 1947 in New Mexico.
One of these types of metal has particular relevance here:
“An unknown quantity of very small to hand-sized pieces of a very thin and very light “metal” that displayed both solid and “fluid” qualities.
The colour of dull aluminium, a piece of it could be wadded up like a ball in one’s hand [without any sensation of weight] and, when placed on a flat surface, it unfurled [“flowed like water”] to its original flat, seamless shape without a mark on it.
Also extremely tough, it could not be cut, scratched or burned.
“Note: it is this so called ‘memory metal’ that our investigation today refers to as the ‘Holy Grail’ of Roswell since a piece of it, if found, would in our view constitute irrefutable proof that an extraterrestrial spacecraft had been recovered.”
***
Roswell Witnesses Reporting
Bendable material
"[There were] many bits of metallic foil, that looked like, but was
not, aluminum, for no matter how often one crumpled it, it regained its
original shape again. Besides that, they were indestructible, even with
a sledgehammer."
"...the material was unusual. Of course the Air Force called it a balloon. It couldn't have been. It was porous. It couldn't hold any air. The material was a fabric... I tried to blow though it. It would go right through it. I tried to blow it with my mouth." [Corley asking for clarification: "What piece? That foil looking stuff?"] "No, no. ...what looked like balloon material. A cloth. ...It wouldn't hold any air. ...it's a cloth-like material, but it was also metallic. ...It was a metallic cloth. It [air] would go right through it. I even tried to burn it. It wouldn't burn. ...a balloon has to have ...gas to go up in the air -- even hot air. This could not hold anything like that. It was porous.
"One of the pieces looked like] something on the order of tinfoil, except that [it] wouldn't tear....
You could wrinkle it and lay it back down and it immediately resumed its original shape... quite pliable, but you couldn't crease or bend it like ordinary metal.
Almost like a plastic, but definitely metallic.
Dad once said that the Army had once told him it was not anything made by us."
"...a
little piece of -- it wasn't tinfoil, it wasn't lead foil -- a piece
about the size of my finger. ...The only reason I noticed the tinfoil
(I'm gonna call it tinfoil), I picked this stuff up and put it in my
chaps pocket.
Might be two or three days or a week before I took it out and put it in a cigar box. I happened to notice when I put that piece of foil in that box, and the damn thing just started unfolding and just flattened out.
Then I got to playing with it. I'd fold it, crease it, lay it down and it'd unfold. It's kinda weird. I couldn't tear it. The color was in between tinfoil and lead foil, about the [thickness] of lead foil."
Might be two or three days or a week before I took it out and put it in a cigar box. I happened to notice when I put that piece of foil in that box, and the damn thing just started unfolding and just flattened out.
Then I got to playing with it. I'd fold it, crease it, lay it down and it'd unfold. It's kinda weird. I couldn't tear it. The color was in between tinfoil and lead foil, about the [thickness] of lead foil."
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