3D Bioplotter Research Papers

Gels composed of multicomponent building blocks offer promising opportunities for the development of novel soft materials with unique and useful structures. While interpenetrating polymer networks have been extensively studied and applied in the creation of these gels, equivalent strategies utilizing colloidal particles have received limited scientific and technological attention. This study presents a novel class of thermo-responsive apolar double gels from interpenetrating networks of attractive colloidal silica and lipid particles. These double gels are easily assembled and suitable for the fabrication of 3D-printed edible soft constructs. Emphasis is focused on the rheological properties and structure emerging on the dilute regime…

Metamaterials can display unusual and superior properties that come from their carefully designed structure rather than their composition. Metamaterials have permeated large swatches of science, including electromagnetics and mechanics. Although metamaterials hold the promise for realizing technological advances, their potential to enhance interactions between humans and materials has largely remained unexplored. Here, we devise a class edible mechanical metamaterials with tailored fracture properties to control mouthfeel sensory experience. Using chocolate as a model material, we first demonstrate how to create and control the fracture anisotropy, and the number of cracks, and demonstrate that these properties are captured in mouthfeel experience.…

Damping mechanical resonances is a formidable challenge in an increasing number of applications. Many passive damping methods rely on using low stiffness, complex mechanical structures or electrical systems, which render them unfeasible in many of these applications. Herein, a new method for passive vibration damping, by allowing buckling of the primary load path in mechanical metamaterials and lattice structures, is introduced, which sets an upper limit for vibration transmission: the transmitted acceleration saturates at a maximum value in both tension and compression, no matter what the input acceleration is. This nonlinear mechanism leads to an extreme damping coefficient tanδ ≈ 0.23…

Metamaterials are artificial structures with unusual and superior properties that come from their carefully designed building blocks — also called meta-atoms. Metamaterials have permeated large swatches of science, including electromagnetics and mechanics. Although metamaterials hold the promise for realizing technological advances, their potential to enhance interactions between humans and materials has remained unexplored. Here, we devise meta-atoms with tailored fracture properties to control mouthfeel sensory experience. Using chocolate as a model material, we first use meta-atoms to control the fracture anisotropy and the number of cracks and demonstrate that these properties are captured in mouthfeel experience. We further use topology…