Enhancing the Versatility and Performance of Soft Robotic Grippers, Hands, and Crawling Robots Through Three-Dimensional-Printed Multifunctional Buckling Joints.

Soft robotic grippers and hands offer adaptability, lightweight construction, and enhanced safety in human-robot interactions. In this study, we introduce vacuum-actuated soft robotic finger joints to overcome their limitations in stiffness, response, and load-carrying capability. Our design-optimized through parametric design and three-dimensional (3D) printing-achieves high stiffness using vacuum pressure and a buckling mechanism for large bending angles (>90°) and rapid response times (0.24 s). We develop a theoretical model and nonlinear finite-element simulations to validate the experimental results and provide valuable insights into the underlying mechanics and visualization of the deformation and stress field. We showcase versatile applications of the buckling joints: a three-finger gripper with a large lifting ratio (∼96), a five-finger robotic hand capable of replicating human gestures and adeptly grasping objects of various characteristics in static and dynamic scenarios, and a planar-crawling robot carrying loads 30 times its weight at 0.89 body length per second (BL/s). In addition, a jellyfish-inspired robot crawls in circular pipes at 0.47 BL/s. By enhancing soft robotic grippers' functionality and performance, our study expands their applications and paves the way for innovation through 3D-printed multifunctional buckling joints.

A global database of bird nest traits.

The reproductive success of birds is closely tied to the characteristics of their nests. It is crucial to understand the distribution of nest traits across phylogenetic and geographic dimensions to gain insight into bird evolution and adaptation. Despite the extensive historical documentation on breeding behavior, a structured dataset describing bird nest characteristics has been lacking. To address this gap, we have compiled a comprehensive dataset that characterizes three ecologically and evolutionarily significant nest traits-site, structure, and attachment-for 9,248 bird species, representing all 36 orders and 241 out of the 244 families. By defining seven sites, seven structures, and four attachment types, we have systematically classified the nests of each species using information from text descriptions, photos, and videos sourced from online databases and literature. This nest traits dataset serves as a valuable addition to the existing body of morphological and ecological trait data for bird species, providing a useful resource for a wide range of avian macroecological and macroevolutionary research.

Analysis of Hazy Ga- and Zr-Co-Doped Zinc Oxide Films Prepared with Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet Systems.

Co-doped ZnO thin films have attracted much attention in the field of transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) in solar cells, displays, and other transparent electronics. Unlike conventional single-doped ZnO, co-doped ZnO utilizes two different dopant elements, offering enhanced electrical properties and more controllable optical properties, including transmittance and haze; however, most previous studies focused on the electrical properties, with less attention paid to obtaining high haze using co-doping. Here, we prepare high-haze Ga- and Zr-co-doped ZnO (GZO:Zr or ZGZO) using atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ) systems. We conduct a detailed analysis to examine the interplay between Zr concentrations and film properties. UV-Vis spectroscopy shows a remarkable haze factor increase of 7.19% to 34.8% (+384%) for the films prepared with 2 at% Zr and 8 at% Ga precursor concentrations. EDS analysis reveals Zr accumulation on larger and smaller particles, while SIMS links particle abundance to impurity uptake and altered electrical properties. XPS identifies Zr mainly as ZrO2 because of lattice stress from Zr doping, forming clusters at lattice boundaries and corroborating the SEM findings. Our work presents a new way to fabricate Ga- and Zr-co-doped ZnO for applications that require low electrical resistivity, high visible transparency, and high haze.

A Comparative Study on the Microstructures, Mineral Content, and Mechanical Properties of Non-Avian Reptilian Eggshells.

We analyze 214 freshly laid eggs belonging to 16 species across three orders of Class Reptilia. Using mechanical compression tests, we measure each egg's absolute stiffness (K, unit: N m-1) and relative stiffness (C number). The effective Young's modulus, E, was obtained by combining experimental and numerical methods. The mineral (CaCO3) content was measured by acid-base titration, the microstructures by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the crystallography by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). We find that the C number of reptilian eggs is, on average, higher than that of bird eggs, indicating that reptilian eggs are stiffer with respect to the egg mass than birds. However, Young's moduli of the reptilian eggshells (32.85 ± 3.48 GPa) are similar to those of avian eggshells (32.07 ± 5.95 GPa), even though those eggshells have different crystal forms, microstructures, and crystallography. Titration measurement shows that the reptilian eggshells are highly mineralized (>89% for nine Testudines species and 96% for Caiman crocodilus). Comparing the species with aragonite and calcite crystals, we find that calcite shells, including those of the Kwangsi gecko (inner part) and spectacled caiman (outer part), generally have larger grains than the aragonite ones. However, the grain size is not correlated to the effective Young's modulus. Also, as measured by the C number, the aragonite shells are, on average, stiffer than the calcite ones (except for the Kwangsi gecko), primarily due to their thicker shells.

Designing Bioinspired Composite Structures via Genetic Algorithm and Conditional Variational Autoencoder.

Designing composite materials with tailored stiffness and toughness is challenging due to the massive number of possible material and geometry combinations. Although various studies have applied machine learning techniques and optimization methods to tackle this problem, we still lack a complete understanding of the material effects at different positions and a systematic experimental procedure to validate the results. Here we study a two-dimensional (2D) binary composite system with an edge crack and grid-like structure using a Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Conditional Variational Autoencoder (CVAE), which can design a composite with desired stiffness and toughness. The fitness of each design is evaluated using the negative mean square error of their predicted stiffness and toughness and the target values. We use finite element simulations to generate a machine-learning dataset and perform tensile tests on 3D-printed specimens to validate our results. We show that adding soft material behind the crack tip, instead of ahead of the tip, tremendously increases the overall toughness of the composite. We also show that while GA generates composite designs with slightly better accuracy (both methods perform well, with errors below 20%), CVAE takes considerably less time (~1/7500) to generate designs. Our findings may provide insights into the effect of adding soft material at different locations of a composite system and may also provide guidelines for conducting experiments and Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) to validate the results.

Single-Actuator Soft Robot for In-Pipe Crawling.

Pipe inspection and maintenance are necessary to prevent economic and casualty losses due to leakage of fluids from damaged pipes. In-pipe soft robots made of highly deformable materials have been proposed to meet the needs, yet most of those comprise multiple segments and require multiple actuators controlled independently, resulting in less compact structures and more demanding control schemes. In this study, we harness the highly nonlinear buckling of elastic ribbons and bioinspired artificial muscles to significantly enhance the crawling capability of a single-actuator soft robot. Our prototype robot consists of a McKibben pneumatic actuator surrounded by three longitudinally arranged elastic ribbons. These tailored ribbons are three-dimensional (3D) printed and can be buckled into highly deformed 3D shapes upon inflation of the actuator. First, we show that the robot exhibits strong anisotropic friction when fully buckled. Then, we demonstrate that by simple open-loop on/off control, our robot achieves robust crawling in horizontal, vertical, bent pipes and even wet pipes partially or filled with water. It can also adapt to pipes with some variations in diameter. Using only one actuator lowers the complexity of robot structure and pneumatic system, offering high potential for new applications at different scales.

Functional connections between bird eggshell stiffness and nest characteristics through risk of egg collision in nests.

Eggs and nests are two critical traits for the ecological success of birds. Their functional interactions, however, remain unclear. Here, we examined the functional connections between egg stiffness and nest attachment, site and structure for 1350 avian species. We revealed high eggshell stiffness for eggs in nests with a pensile attachment, located on non-tree vegetation or having a domed shape, suggesting that birds produce stiffer eggs in response to higher egg-collision risk in unstable or enclosed nests. Interdependence models suggested that the evolution of eggshell stiffness was more likely to be driven by than drive that of nest characters. Our results implied a trade-off between investment in competing for established nesting niches and producing stiff eggs to explore novel niches with high collision risk, possibly mediated by predation or thermoregulation. This study highlights an overlooked connection between nests and eggshells that may have broadened the ecological niches of birds.

Elastic Moduli of Avian Eggshell.

We analyze 700 freshly-laid eggs from 58 species (22 families and 13 orders) across three orders of magnitude in egg mass. We study the elastic moduli using three metrics: (i) effective Young's modulus, EFEM, by a combined experimental and numerical method; (ii) elastic modulus, Enano, by nanoindentation, and (iii) theoretical Young's modulus, Etheory. We measure the mineral content by acid-base titration, and crystallographic characteristics by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), on representative species. We find that the mineral content ranges between 83.1% (Zebra finch) and 96.5% (ostrich) and is positively correlated with EFEM-23.28 GPa (Zebra finch) and 47.76 GPa (ostrich). The EBSD shows that eggshell is anisotropic and non-homogeneous, and different species have different degrees of crystal orientation and texture. Ostrich eggshell exhibits strong texture in the thickness direction, whereas chicken eggshell has little. Such anisotropy and inhomogeneity are consistent with the nanoindentation tests. However, the crystal characteristics do not appear to correlate with EFEM, as EFEM represents an overall "average" elasticity of the entire shell. The experimental results are consistent with the theoretical prediction of linear elasticity. Our comprehensive investigation into the elastic moduli of avian eggshell over broad taxonomic scales provides a useful dataset for those who work on avian reproduction.

Egg Incubation Mechanics of Giant Birds.

Finite element analysis (FEA) was used to conduct mechanical analyses on eggshells of giant birds, and relate this to the evolution and reproductive behavior of avian species. We aim to (1) investigate mechanical characteristics of eggshell structures of various ratite species, enabling comparisons between species with or without reversed sexual size dimorphism (RSSD); (2) quantify the safety margin provided by RSSD; (3) determine whether the Williams' egg can have been incubated by an extinct giant bird Genyornis newtoni; (4) determine the theoretical maximum body mass for contact incubation. We use a dimensionless number C to quantify relative shell stiffness with respect to the egg size, allowing for comparison across wide body masses. We find that RSSD in moas significantly increases the safety margin of contact incubation by the lighter males. However, their safety margins are still smaller than those of the moa species without RSSD. Two different strategies were adopted by giant birds-one is RSSD and thinner shells, represented by some moa species; the other is no RSSD and regular shells, represented by the giant elephant bird. Finally, we predicted that the upper limit of body mass for contact incubation was 2000 kg.

Measurement of Nonlinear Poisson's Ratio of Thermoplastic Polyurethanes under Cyclic Softening Using 2D Digital Image Correlation.

Thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs) and other elastomers are widely used in many applications for the advantages they provide in terms of high elasticity, lightness, resistance to breakage, and impact resistance. These materials exhibit strong hysteresis in the large strain stress-strain behavior, known as cyclic softening or the Mullins effect. Despite the extensive studies on this phenomenon and the importance of Poisson's ratio, how the Poisson's ratio of these materials changes during cyclic uniaxial tests is still unclear. Here, we measure the nonlinear Poisson's ratio of TPU and investigate its correlation with cyclic softening using two-dimensional digital image correlation (2D-DIC) combined with the reference sample compensation (RSC) method. This accuracy-enhanced method can effectively eliminate the measurement errors induced by the unavoidable out-of-plane displacements and lens distortion. We find that the Poisson's ratio of TPUs also exhibits large hysteresis in the first cycle and then approaches a steady state in subsequent cycles. Specifically, it starts from a relatively low value of 0.45 ± 0.005 in the first loading, then increases to 0.48 ± 0.005 in the first unloading, and remains largely constant afterward. Such a change in the Poisson's ratio results in a slight volume increase (≈1%) at a maximum strain of 17.5%. Our findings are useful for those who use finite element method to analyze the mechanical behavior of TPU, and shed new light on understanding the physical origin of cyclic softening.

Dielectrophoretic Crossover Frequency of Single Particles: Quantifying the Effect of Surface Functional Groups and Electrohydrodynamic Flow Drag Force.

We present a comprehensive comparison of dielectrophoretic (DEP) crossover frequency of single particles determined by various experimental methods and theoretical models under the same conditions, and ensure that discrepancy due to uncertain or inconsistent material properties and electrode design can be minimized. Our experiment shows that sulfate- and carboxyl-functionalized particles have higher crossover frequencies than non-functionalized ones, which is attributed to the electric double layer (EDL). To better understand the formation of the EDL, we performed simulations to study the relationship between initial surface charge density, surface ion adsorption, effective surface conductance, and functional groups of both functionalized and nonfunctionalized particles in media with various conductivities. We also conducted detailed simulations to quantify how much error may be introduced if concurrent electrohydrodynamic forces, such as electrothermal and electro-osmotic forces, are not properly avoided during the crossover frequency measurement.

Correction to 'Cracking failure of curved hollow tree trunks'.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1098/rsos.200203.].

Cracking failure of curved hollow tree trunks.

Understanding the failure modes of curved hollow tree trunks is essential from both safety and conservation perspectives. Despite extensive research, the underlying mechanism that determines the cracking failure of curved hollow tree trunks remains unclear due to the lack of theoretical analysis that considers both the initial curvature and orthotropic material properties. Here we derive new mathematical expressions for predicting the bending moment, M crack, at which the cracking failure occurs. The failure mode of a tree species is then determined, as a function of t/R and cR, by comparing M crack with M bend, where t, R and c are, respectively, the trunk wall thickness, outer radius and initial curvature; M bend is the bending moment for conventional bending failure. Our equation shows that M crack is proportional to the tangential tensile strength of wood σT , increases with t/R, and decreases with the final cR. We analyse 11 tree species and find that hardwoods are more likely to fail in conventional bending, whereas softwoods tend to break due to cracking. This is due to the softwoods' much smaller tangential tensile strength, as observed from the data of 66 hardwoods and 43 softwoods. For larger cR, cracking failure is easier to occur in curvature-decreasing bending than curvature-increasing due to additional normal tensile force F acting on the neutral cross-section; on the other hand, for smaller cR, bending failure is easier to occur due to decreased final curvature. Our formulae are applicable to other natural and man-made curved hollow beams with orthotropic material properties. Our findings provide insights for those managing trees in urban situations and those managing for conservation of hollow-dependent fauna in both urban and rural settings.

Forming three-dimensional closed shapes from two-dimensional soft ribbons by controlled buckling.

Conventional manufacturing techniques-moulding, machining and casting-exist to produce three-dimensional (3D) shapes. However, these industrial processes are typically geared for mass production and are not directly applicable to residential settings, where inexpensive and versatile tools are desirable. Moreover, those techniques are, in general, not adequate to process soft elastic materials. Here, we introduce a new concept of forming 3D closed hollow shapes from two-dimensional (2D) elastic ribbons by controlled buckling. We numerically and experimentally characterize how the profile and thickness of the ribbon determine its buckled shape. We find a 2D master profile with which various elliptical 3D shapes can be formed. More complex natural and artificial hollow shapes, such as strawberry, hourglass and wheel, can also be achieved via strategic design and pattern engraving on the ribbons. The nonlinear response of the post-buckling regime is rationalized through finite-element analysis, which shows good quantitative agreement with experiments. This robust fabrication should complement conventional techniques and provide a rich arena for future studies on the mechanics and new applications of elastic hollow structures.

The avian egg exhibits general allometric invariances in mechanical design.

The avian egg exhibits extraordinary diversity in size, shape and color, and has a key role in avian adaptive radiations. Despite extensive work, our understanding of the underlying principles that guide the "design" of the egg as a load-bearing structure remains incomplete, especially over broad taxonomic scales. Here we define a dimensionless number C, a function of egg weight, stiffness and dimensions, to quantify how stiff an egg is with respect to its weight after removing geometry-induced rigidity. We analyze eggs of 463 bird species in 36 orders across five orders of magnitude in body mass, and find that C number is nearly invariant for most species, including tiny hummingbirds and giant elephant birds. This invariance or "design guideline" dictates that evolutionary changes in shell thickness and Young's modulus, both contributing to shell stiffness, are constrained by changes in egg weight. Our analysis illuminates unique reproductive strategies of brood parasites, kiwis, and megapodes, and quantifies the loss of safety margin for contact incubation due to artificial selection and environmental toxins. Our approach provides a mechanistic framework for a better understanding of the mechanical design of the avian egg, and may provide clues to the evolutionary origin of contact incubation of amniote eggs.

Failure mechanism of hollow tree trunks due to cross-sectional flattening.

Failure of hollow trees in urban areas is a worldwide concern, and it can be caused by different mechanisms, i.e. bending stresses or flattening-related failures. Here we derive a new analytical expression for predicting the bending moment for tangential cracking, and compare the breaking moment of various failure modes, including Brazier buckling, tangential cracking, shear failure and conventional bending failure, as a function of t/R ratio, where t and R are the trunk wall thickness and trunk radius, respectively, of a hollow tree. We use Taiwan red cypress as an example and show that its failure modes and the corresponding t/R ratios are: Brazier buckling (Mode I), tangential cracking followed by longitudinal splitting (Mode II) and conventional bending failure (Mode III) for 0 < t/R < 0.06, 0.06 < t/R < 0.27 and 0.27 < t/R < 1, respectively. The exact values of those ratios may vary within and among species, but the variation is much smaller than individual mechanical properties. Also, shear failure, another type of cracking due to maximum shear stress near the neutral axis of the tree trunk, is unlikely to occur since it requires much larger bending moments. Hence, we conclude that tangential cracking due to cross-sectional flattening, followed by longitudinal splitting, is dominant for hollow trunks. Our equations are applicable to analyse straight hollow tree trunks and plant stems, but are not applicable to those with side openings or those with only heart decay. Our findings provide insights for those managing trees in urban situations and those managing for conservation of hollow-dependent fauna in both urban and rural settings.

Size-dependent dielectrophoretic crossover frequency of spherical particles.

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) has been extensively used in lab-on-a-chip systems for trapping, separating, and manipulating of micro particles suspended in a liquid medium. The most widely used analytic model, the dipole model, provides an accurate prediction on the crossover frequency of submicron particles, but cannot explain the significant drop in crossover frequency of larger particles. Here, we present numerical simulations using the Maxwell stress tensor (MST) and finite element method to study the size effect of the DEP crossover frequency of spherical polystyrene particles suspended in de-ionized water. Our results show that the surface conductance due to the electrical double layer plays a key role, and the size dependency of crossover frequency obtained by the MST method agrees reasonably well with published experimental data. The exponents of the power law are approximately -1.0 and -4.3 for smaller (diameter < 4.6 µm) and larger particles (diameter > 4.6 µm), respectively. The free surface charge distribution reveals that the charge begins accumulating on the particle equator for particle diameters larger than a critical diameter of 4.6 µm, a result not captured by the dipolar approximation. This method may be extended to analyze bioparticles with complex shapes and composition, and provides new insights into the interpretation of dielectrophoresis applications using lab-on-a-chip systems.