Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Autonomous snapping and jumping polymer gels

Nature Materials volume 20, pages 1695–1701 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Snap-through buckling is commonly used in nature for power-amplified movements. While natural examples such as Utricularia and Dionaea muscipula can autonomously reset their snapping structures, bio-inspired analogues require external mediation for sequential snap events. Here we report the design principles for self-repeating, snap-based polymer jumping devices. Transient shape changes during the drying of a polymer gel are exploited to generate mechanical constraint and an internal driving force for snap-through buckling. Snap-induced shape changes alter environmental interactions to realize multiple, self-repeating snap events. The underlying mechanisms are understood through controlled experiments and numerical modelling. Using these lessons, we create snap-induced jumping devices with power density outputs (specific power ≈ 312 W kg−1) that are similar to high-performing jumping organisms and engineered robots. These results provide the demonstration of an autonomous, self-repeating, high-speed movement, marking an important advance in the development of environmental energy harvesting, high-power motion that is important for microscale robots and actuated devices.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Repeating snap-through buckling transitions of a swollen PDMS strip.
Fig. 2: Autonomous snapping motion of externally buckled PDMS strips.
Fig. 3: Transient formation of a spherical shell from a flat disc.
Fig. 4: Details of the dynamic performance of a spherical shell jumping on a substrate.
Fig. 5: Dynamic performance metrics of the jumps of spherical shells (R0 = 5 mm, h0 = 0.6 mm) prepared under different initial de-swelling conditions.
Fig. 6: Application of the autonomous snapping mechanism for performing higher level tasks.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The authors declare that data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and its supplementary information files. Additional data used in constructing plots and figures are available from UMass ScholarWorks (https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/116).

References

  1. Longo, S. J. et al. Beyond power amplification: latch-mediated spring actuation is an emerging framework for the study of diverse elastic systems. J. Exp. Biol. 222, jeb197889 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Ilton, M. et al. The principles of cascading power limits in small, fast biological and engineered systems. Science 360, eaao1082 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Gomez, M., Moulton, D. E. & Vella, D. Critical slowing down in purely elastic ‘snap-through’ instabilities. Nat. Phys. 13, 142–145 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Vangbo, M. An analytical analysis of a compressed bistable buckled beam. Sens. Actuators A Phys. 69, 212–216 (1998).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Sano, T. G. & Wada, H. Snap-buckling in asymmetrically constrained elastic strips. Phys. Rev. E 97, 013002 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Chen, D., Yoon, J., Chandra, D., Crosby, A. J. & Hayward, R. C. Stimuli-responsive buckling mechanics of polymer films. J. Polym. Sci. B Polym. Phys. 52, 1441–1461 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Siéfert, E., Reyssat, E., Bico, J. & Roman, B. Bio-inspired pneumatic shape-morphing elastomers. Nat. Mater. 18, 24–28 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Keplinger, C., Li, T., Baumgartner, R., Suo, Z. & Bauer, S. Harnessing snap-through instability in soft dielectrics to achieve giant voltage-triggered deformation. Soft Matter 8, 285–288 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Camescasse, B., Fernandes, A. & Pouget, J. Bistable buckled beam: elastica modeling and analysis of static actuation. Int. J. Solids Struct. 50, 2881–2893 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Pi, Y.-L. & Bradford, M. A. Nonlinear dynamic buckling of pinned-fixed shallow arches under a sudden central concentrated load. Nonlinear Dyn. 73, 1289–1306 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Gerbode, S. J., Puzey, J. R., McCormick, A. G. & Mahadevan, L. How the cucumber tendril coils and overwinds. Science 337, 1087–1091 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Erb, R. M., Sander, J. S., Grisch, R. & Studart, A. R. Self-shaping composites with programmable bioinspired microstructures. Nat. Commun. 4, 1712 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Reyssat, E. & Mahadevan, L. Hygromorphs: from pine cones to biomimetic bilayers. J. R. Soc. Interface 6, 951–957 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Poppinga, S. et al. Biomechanical analysis of prey capture in the carnivorous Southern bladderwort (Utricularia australis). Sci. Rep. 7, 1776 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Skotheim, J. M. & Mahadevan, L. Physical limits and design principles for plant and fungal movements. Science 308, 1308–1310 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Poppinga, S., Weisskopf, C., Westermeier, A. S., Masselter, T. & Speck, T. Fastest predators in the plant kingdom: functional morphology and biomechanics of suction traps found in the largest genus of carnivorous plants. AoB Plants 8, plv140 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Holmes, D. P. & Crosby, A. J. Snapping surfaces. Adv. Mater. 19, 3589–3593 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Lee, H., Xia, C. & Fang, N. X. First jump of microgel; actuation speed enhancement by elastic instability. Soft Matter 6, 4342–4345 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Zhao, Q. et al. A bioinspired reversible snapping hydrogel assembly. Mater. Horiz. 3, 422–428 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Haldane, D. W., Plecnik, M. M., Yim, J. K. & Fearing, R. S. Robotic vertical jumping agility via series-elastic power modulation. Sci. Robot. 1, eaag2048 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Hu, Y., Chen, X., Whitesides, G. M., Vlassak, J. J. & Suo, Z. Indentation of polydimethylsiloxane submerged in organic solvents. J. Mater. Res. 26, 785–795 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Smallwood, I. M. Handbook of Organic Solvent Properties (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2012).

  23. Pandey, A., Moulton, D. E., Vella, D. & Holmes, D. P. Dynamics of snapping beams and jumping poppers. Europhys. Lett. 105, 24001 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Hong, W., Zhao, X., Zhou, J. & Suo, Z. A theory of coupled diffusion and large deformation in polymeric gels. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 56, 1779–1793 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Hong, W., Liu, Z. & Suo, Z. Inhomogeneous swelling of a gel in equilibrium with a solvent and mechanical load. Int. J. Solids Struct. 46, 3282–3289 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Thomson, W. 4. On the equilibrium of vapour at a curved surface of liquid. Proc. R. Soc. Edinb. 7, 63–68 (1872).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Sutton, G. P., Doroshenko, M., Cullen, D. A. & Burrows, M. Take-off speed in jumping mantises depends on body size and a power-limited mechanism. J. Exp. Biol. 219, 2127–2136 (2016).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Olberding, J. P. & Deban, S. M. Effects of temperature and force requirements on muscle work and power output. J. Exp. Biol. 220, 2017–2025 (2017).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by, or in part by, the US Army Research Laboratory and the US Army Research Office under contract/grant number W911NF-15-1-0358.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Polymer Science & Engineering Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA

    Yongjin Kim & Alfred J. Crosby

  2. Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Delft, The Netherlands

    Jay van den Berg

Authors
  1. Yongjin Kim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jay van den Berg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Alfred J. Crosby
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

Y.K. conceived and conducted the experiments, performed data analysis and contributed to the writing and editing of the manuscript. J.v.d.B. conducted experiments and performed data analysis. A.J.C. conceived experiments and contributed to the writing and editing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alfred J. Crosby.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Video Legends 1–8, Sections 1–3, Note 1, Figs. 1–6 and refs. 1–7.

Supplementary Video 1

Multiple, sequential snap-through transitions of a swollen polymer gel strip with one fixed end.

Supplementary Video 2

Multiple, sequential snap-through transitions of a swollen polymer gel strip on a PTFE substrate.

Supplementary Video 3

Multiple, sequential snap transitions of an externally constrained PDMS strip (h0 = 0.5 mm, w0 = 5 mm, L = 50 mm, ΔL = 10 mm)

Supplementary Video 4

High-speed video of a snapping shell (R0 = 4 mm, h0 = 0.6 mm, tprep = 40 s).

Supplementary Video 5

High-speed video of a snapping shell (R0 = 3 mm, h0 = 0.3 mm, tprep = 30 s) jumping on the copper mesh.

Supplementary Video 6

A snapping shell climbing down a slope.

Supplementary Video 7

Snapping shells climbing a ladder with a height of 8 cm.

Supplementary Video 8

Movie of finite element simulation of buckling induced during evaporative de-swelling of an initially swollen elastomer beam.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kim, Y., van den Berg, J. & Crosby, A.J. Autonomous snapping and jumping polymer gels. Nat. Mater. 20, 1695–1701 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-020-00909-w

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-020-00909-w

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing