
Shape-programmable magnetic soft matter - tomahunt
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/09/23/1608193113.abstract
======
barisser
People don't even understand how important materials science is. All they
think about is digital/hype technologies.

~~~
zevets
This paper looks a lot like a materials hype paper. The mathematics for the
design process are interesting, but the material/actuator itself looks pretty
poor.

The actuation forces are incredibly low - if i've eyeballed correctly - around
10 micro newtons and it requires a large bulky magnetic field setup, only
shown in the supplementary section.

------
proee
how many cycles can this material handle before failure? Typical "muscle-wire"
shape memory alloys fail with only a few million cycles.

~~~
tomahunt
I don't think they mention time/use to failure. However the quick information
I can get on the material: "...we use a two-step molding process to embed a
heterogeneous distribution of ferromagnetic and aluminum microparticles into a
silicone rubber". So it might have the same durability as a similar composite
material.

