4D technology tagged posts

Goddard optics experts Babak Saif (left) and Lee Feinberg (right), with help from engineer Eli Griff-McMahon an employee of Genesis, have created an Ultra-Stable Thermal Vacuum system that they will use to make picometer-level measurements. Credit: NASA/W. Hrybyk

Astronomers have shown for the first time that they can dynamically detect subatomic- or picometer-sized distortions – changes that are far smaller than an atom – across a 5-foot segmented telescope mirror and its support structure. NASA optics experts are well on the way to toppling a barrier that has thwarted scientists from achieving a long-held ambition: building an ultra-stable telescope that locates and images dozens of Earth-like planets beyond the solar system and then scrutinizes their atmospheres for signs of life.

To fi...

This image shows the self-folding process of smart shape-memory materials with slightly different responses to heat. Using materials that fold at slightly different rates is important to ensure that the components do not interfere with one another during the process. Credit: Credit: Qi Laboratory, Georgia Tech

Using components made from smart shape-memory materials with slightly different responses to heat, researchers have demonstrated 4D printing technology that allowed creation of complex self-folding structures. The technology, from Georgia Institute of Technology and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), could be used to create 3D structures that sequentially fold themselves from components that had been flat or rolled into a tube for shipment...