Thermally tunable, self-healing composites for soft robotic applications

The field of soft robotics has inspired recent mechanical engineering and materials science innovations to enable shape-shifting systems to be developed. This paper presents the design and analysis of a novel thermally tunable composite, namely, a flexible open-cell foam coated in wax that can achieve significant ranges of stiffness, strength, and volume. Experimental results were compared to a proposed model for predicting the bulk compression modulus of the composites. Additionally, preliminary studies indicate that the composites exhibit self-healing properties, in which heating between loading cycles can mend wax that has been plastically deformed, for example, by cracking or delaminating from the foam.