Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are “smart” materials that have the ability to change their shape or orientation in response to external stimuli such as temperature, light, or mechanical stress. This unique combination of properties makes LCEs suitable for a wide range of applications in diverse industries including aerospace, automotive, electronics, and biomedical. Manufacturing LCEs requires the ability to magnetically manufacture complex structures with programmable material alignment in 3D space.
This LLNL invention is capable of generating, on-the-fly, tunable magnetic field strengths with voxel-by-voxel alignment. The approach is to use a custom designed Halbach array consisting of permanent magnets or electromagnets to provide a uniform magnetic field in any direction. This Halbach array will then be coupled with a stereolithography (SLA) printer so that locally aligned regions can be “locked into” place by curing during 3D printing. A key feature of this invention is the ability to generate relatively large magnetic field strengths (<100 mT) in arbitrary directions; this enables alignment on smaller scales than previously possible.
Image Caption: Schematic of custom electromagnet-SLA printer
Current stage of technology development: TRL 3
LLNL has filed for patent protection on this invention.
• Value Proposition: Increased performance to enable a bigger market
• Tunable magnetic field strength
• Varying directions of magnetic field
• Reversible and repeatable 3D-to-3D shape change
• Tunable stiffness architectures
• Cellular fluidics
• Light-weight, high-strength applications
