Muscle-like fatigue-resistant hydrogels by mechanical training
Name
10244.full.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.68 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
1779cf9ba51f8c73f8a979ecb14a2285
Author(s)
Lin, Shaoting
Liu, Ji
Liu, Xinyue
Zhao, Xuanhe
Date Issued
May 2019
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Citation
Lin, Shaoting et al. "Muscle-like fatigue-resistant hydrogels by mechanical training." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, 21 (May 2019): 10244-10249 © 2019 National Academy of Sciences
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Skeletal muscles possess the combinational properties of high fatigue resistance (1,000 J/m2), high strength (1 MPa), low Young's modulus (100 kPa), and high water content (70 to 80 wt %), which have not been achieved in synthetic hydrogels. The muscle-like properties are highly desirable for hydrogels' nascent applications in load-bearing artificial tissues and soft devices. Here, we propose a strategy of mechanical training to achieve the aligned nanofibrillar architectures of skeletal muscles in synthetic hydrogels, resulting in the combinational muscle-like properties. These properties are obtained through the training-induced alignment of nanofibrils, without additional chemical modifications or additives. In situ confocal microscopy of the hydrogels' fracturing processes reveals that the fatigue resistance results from the crack pinning by the aligned nanofibrils, which require much higher energy to fracture than the corresponding amorphous polymer chains. This strategy is particularly applicable for 3D-printed microstructures of hydrogels, in which we can achieve isotropically fatigue-resistant, strong yet compliant properties.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1903019116
