MIT and NASA have constructed several aircraft wings using tiny, identical pieces bolted together in a highly flexible, deform-able structure. At that, the wing is light, strong, and capable of “morphing” in ways that enable slower landing speeds, faster rates of climb, and high maneuverability. A Lot like Fractals This type of assembly is much like fractals, repeated forms that assemble into larger forms that become enlarged examples of the smaller ones. These forms are part of the natural world, so the mimicry in the morphing wing can very mach be said to be an organic design. The tiny pieces comprise thousands of miniature triangles “matchstick-like struts,” according to David L. Chandler at the MIT News Office. The tiny subassemblies were bolted together by hand to form a lattice-like framework, and are then covered with a thin polymer film of the same material as the framework. Future plans call for robot assembly to speed up construction. As Chandler writes, “The …
Lighter, Stronger, and Morphable
If you have a pre-teen roaming around the house, you more than likely know the shared delight of assembling the biggest possible thing you can make from Lego® blocks. There must be something of that delight in the Center for Bits and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There, researchers have invented, “A new approach to assembling big structures — even airplanes and bridges — out of small interlocking composite components,” according to a story by David L. Chandler of the MIT News Office. Neil Gershenfeld, director of the Center, and post-doctoral student Kenneth Cheung recently co-authored a paper published in the journal Science, in which they describe assembling strong lightweight structures with “cubocts,” lattice structures that are the lightest and strongest in existence, as stated in the Center’s publications. The Center claims 12.3 megaPascals, or 1,784 pound per square inch strength for the 7.3 milligrams per cubic centimeter material (about 0.45 pounds per cubic foot). Balsa wood, …