Dr Amir Hosein Sakhaei publishes in top-rank journal Advanced Materials

Smart Hinge

Dr Amir Hosein Sakhaei, Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the School of Engineering and Digital Arts has had a co-authored paper, entitled ‘Mechanically Robust and UV-Curable Shape-Memory Polymers for Digital Light Processing Based 4D Printing‘, published in the journal Advanced Materials.

The journal is considered the No 1 journal in the field of material science and physics of functional materials with as Impact Factor of 27.398 (Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics, 2020)).

4D printing is an emerging fabrication technology that enables 3D printed structures that change their configuration in response to specific stimulus over time. Among different active materials which can be used for 4D printing, (UV)-curable Shape Memory Polymers (SMPs) are compatible with Digital Light Processing (DLP)-based 3D printing that enables the fabrication of structures with complex geometry and high-resolution. However, available UV-curable SMPs have significant drawbacks in terms of their mechanical behaviours, which constrain their application ranges.

In this collaborative work, a new UV-curable SMP system is presented which shows robust mechanical performance including:

  • Highly deformable (up to 1240% deformation in complex 3D structures)
  • compatible with DLP-based 3D printing
  • High-resolution printing (up to 2 μm)
  • Excellent fatigue resistance (can be loaded more than 10 000 cycles)

These significant improvements on the SMP-based 4D printing structures makes them an appropriate material to be used in different applications in industries such as aerospace, soft robotics and smart furniture.

The full article is available to read on the publisher’s website, here:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202101298