Can Robots Mold Soft Plastic Materials by Shaping Depth Images?

Kinetic theory of plastic flow in soft glassy materials.

A kinetic model for the elastoplastic dynamics of a jammed material is proposed, which takes the form of a nonlocal--Boltzmann-like--kinetic equation for the stress distribution function. Coarse graining this equation yields a nonlocal constitutive law for the flow, exhibiting as a key dynamic quantity the local rate of plastic events. This quantity, interpreted as a local fluidity, is spatiall...

Soft robots

That does sound stressful. It is. And it is getting worse. When I started out, I wrote a total of 17 proposals to different agencies before I obtained funding. But that was back when the funding levels were reasonable — with paylines at the 20–30% level, and you could resubmit twice. When I finally did get funding, I barely made the cutoff, and that on my third try. Now the paylines are signifi...

Soft Components for Soft Robots

Typical robot platforms comprise rigid links with fixed degrees-offreedom, solid blocks of transmission and actuator, and superficial positioning of sensors: they are often optimized for the given design criteria but are unable to execute instantaneous changes to the robot's initial mechanism design. The reallife incidences, however, require robots to face complex situations filled with unprogr...

Fiber reinforced plastic composites using recycled materials

This work investigates the feasibility of using recycled high density polyethylene (rHDPE), recycled polypropylene (rPP) and old newsprint fiber (ONP) to manufacture fiber reinforced composites. The boards were made through air-forming and hot press. The effects of the fiber loading and coupling agent content on tensile, flexural, internal bond properties and water absorption and thickness swel...

14 Lightweight Plastic Materials