Jaz captured a video of his membrane pump moving water from left to right. The metallized membrane is a disc of about 1 cm diameter sandwiched between the pink layers of plastic, while metal tubes on either side supply an AC electric field. The voltage applied at the red and black clips is similar to …
Author Archives: cindy.harnett@louisville.edu
Signs of life in the lab
Our projects are about integrating “functional” materials into larger structures, without damaging the material or the structure. Some examples of functions we want the materials to have are exerting forces, absorbing specific wavelengths, or turning a mechanical stress into an electronic signal. That won’t happen if we melted the material during installation (a real danger …
Bring it
Group meeting nearly overwhelmed this table at FirstBuild. Jaz brought new data and Shaf had a couple of new microfluidic devices; both projects involve membranes. Brian demoed his system for routing fiber actuators using a laser-cut template. Added to the pile: hollow fiber membranes from our collaborator at UK and a mechanism designed to work with an …
A Lot Of Strands
We continue to explore how fibers can get into the computer-controlled fabrication process. 3D printing takes the spotlight, but each year about 10x more sewing machines are sold in the US than desktop 3D printers worldwide. If we can combine some of their capabilities with 3D printing, a lot of exciting materials can join the party – whether …
3 great papers from 2016
Three papers that inspired our group in 2016 are connected by the theme of fluid-driven robotics. Whether the fluid is a gas or a liquid, these robotic systems need a way to (1) move the fluid around, and (2) get feedback on how much it moved, because the amount of motion depends on what the …