SYNTHETIC GECKO INSPIRED DRY ADHESIVE THROUGH TWO- PHOTON POLYMERIZATION FOR SPACE APPLICATIONS

This work aims to develop an advanced and cost-effective fabrication process to produce a simplified gecko-inspired microstructure with two-photon polymerization and polymer molding, aimed to improve the adhesive properties of microstructures. Such adhesive microstructures can be implemented for multi-purpose adhesive grasping devices, which have recently gained significant interest in the space exploration sector. Previous gecko-inspired microstructures were reviewed, and the new gecko-inspired microstructures have been developed with the adaptation of additive manufacturing methods for facile fabrication. The examined microstructures in this thesis were the tilted mushroom-shaped and wedge-shaped designs, which could both maximize adhesion by shearing the micropillars toward the tilted direction when preload force is applied. The improved microstructure fabrication process could produce micropillars in the height of 270 μm with soft polymer without defects. However, the miniaturized micropillars in the height of 40 μm, frabricated with the same process, had broken tips and missing structures. The effects of the scale, height, and shape of the micropillars in controllable dry adhesion were investigated through the experiments. The adhesion of the microstructures with artificial gecko setae in the height of 270 μm was 2 times higher than the microstructures with 40 μm of height. Meanwhile, the microstructures that consisted of long and short artificial gecko setae had inferior adhesive performance to the microstructures having uniform long setae on all tested surfaces. Meanwhile, the result showed no direct correlation between the surface roughness of the attached surface and the adhesive performance of the microstructures. The wedge-shaped design was determined to have higher adhesion than the tilted mushroom-shaped design due to lower structural resistance on bending and higher effective contact area

Flexible Mold for Microstructures Replication

Space debris has been a growing concern in space exploration sector. To combat this issue, biomimicry is utilized to create a gecko’s feet microstructure that will be attached to a gripper or robotic arm. This will enable capture of debris through the use of dry adhesive microstructure. However, the production of such microstructures is expensive which hinders their implementation. The objective of this research is to develop an advanced fabrication process to mass produce gecko’s feet microstructure with soft polymer mold. The possibility of using different coating methods with coating materials will be justified. The process of fabricating mold and replicating mold will be optimized. The method of mass producing microstructures will be verified and the limitation of the method will also be studied

Additively Manufactured Morphing Structures with Embedded Smart Actuators

Observing volant creatures has demonstrated that adapting the shape of the wing to the changing flight environment increases flight efficiency and performance. Current aerial vehicles have stiff aerodynamic surfaces that limit any adapting capability. The development of the concept of fully morphing structures is enabling the creation of bio-inspired, adaptable structures with outstanding performance. However, current morphing structures suffer from poor implementation that often brings more drawbacks than advantage to the final product. This research focuses on an effective implementation of morphing technology to fully realize it\u27s potential. This can be achieved by employing a novel additive manufacturing method that can fabricate morphing structures with integrated and distributed actuation systems. Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are one of the most intensively studied soft, smart actuators due to their promising electromechanical properties. As such, this project utilizes DEAs as the primary material for the morphing structure. Preliminary work has been completed in selecting and validating the additive manufacturing method as well as material selection and improvement. The main goal of this research is to implement additive manufacturing coupled with morphing structures to design, build and test a fully morphing wing structure suitable for small aerial vehicles

Additively manufactured unimorph dielectric elastomer actuators: Design, materials, and fabrication

Dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) is a smart material that holds promise for soft robotics due to the material’s intrinsic softness, high energy density, fast response, and reversible electromechanical characteristics. Like for most soft robotics materials, additive manufacturing (AM) can significantly benefit DEAs and is mainly applied to the unimorph DEA (UDEA) configuration. While major aspects of UDEA modeling are known, 3D printed UDEAs are subject to specific material and geometrical limitations due to the AM process and require a more thorough analysis of their design and performance. Furthermore, a figure of merit (FOM) is an analytical tool that is frequently used for planar DEA design optimization and material selection but is not yet derived for UDEA. Thus, the objective of the paper is modeling of 3D printed UDEAs, analyzing the effects of their design features on the actuation performance, and deriving FOMs for UDEAs. As a result, the derived analytical model demonstrates dependence of actuation performance on various design parameters typical for 3D printed DEAs, provides a new optimum thickness to Young’s modulus ratio of UDEA layers when designing a 3D printed DEA with fixed dielectric elastomer layer thickness, and serves as a base for UDEAs’ FOMs. The FOMs have various degrees of complexity depending on considered UDEA design features. The model was numerically verified and experimentally validated through the actuation of a 3D printed UDEA. The fabricated and tested UDEA design was optimized geometrically by controlling the thickness of each layer and from the material perspective by mixing commercially available silicones in non-standard ratios for the passive and dielectric layers. Finally, the prepared non-standard mix ratios of the silicones were characterized for their viscosity dynamics during curing at various conditions to investigate the silicones’ manufacturability through AM

Two-Photon Polymerization of Butterfly Wing Scale Inspired Surfaces with Anisotropic Wettability

Wings of Morph aega butterflies are natural surfaces that exhibit anisotropic liquid wettability. The direction-dependent arrangement of the wing scales creates orientation-turnable microstructures with two distinct contact modes for liquid droplets. Enabled by recent developments in additive manufacturing, such natural surface designs coupled with hydrophobicity play a crucial role in applications such as self-cleaning, anti-icing, and fluidic manipulation. However, the interplay among resolution, architecture, and performance of bioinspired structures is barely achieved. Herein, inspired by the wing scales of the Morpho aega butterfly, full-scale synthetic surfaces with anisotropic wettability fabricated by two-photon polymerization are reported. The quality of the artificial butterfly scale is improved by optimizing the laser scanning strategy and the objective lens movement path. The corresponding contact angles of water on the fabricated architecture with various design parameters are measured, and the anisotropic fluidic wettability is investigated. Results demonstrate that tuning the geometrical parameters and spatial arrangement of the artificial wing scales enables anisotropic behaviors of the droplet’s motion. The measured results also indicate a reverse phenomenon of the fabricated surfaces in contrast to their natural counterparts, possibly attributed to the significant difference in equilibrium wettability between the fabricated microstructures and the natural Morpho aega surface. These findings are utilized to design next-generation fluid-controllable interfaces for manipulating liquid mobility on synthetic surfaces

Epigenomic identification of vernalization cis-regulatory elements in winter wheat

Abstract Background Winter wheat undergoes vernalization, a process activated by prolonged exposure to low temperatures. During this phase, flowering signals are generated and transported to the apical meristems, stimulating the transition to the inflorescence meristem while inhibiting tiller bud elongation. Although some vernalization genes have been identified, the key cis-regulatory elements and precise mechanisms governing this process in wheat remain largely unknown. Results In this study, we construct extensive epigenomic and transcriptomic profiling across multiple tissues—leaf, axillary bud, and shoot apex—during the vernalization of winter wheat. Epigenetic modifications play a crucial role in eliciting tissue-specific responses and sub-genome-divergent expressions during vernalization. Notably, we observe that H3K27me3 primarily regulates vernalization-induced genes and has limited influence on vernalization-repressed genes. The integration of these datasets enables the identification of 10,600 putative vernalization-related regulatory elements including distal accessible chromatin regions (ACRs) situated 30Kb upstream of VRN3, contributing to the construction of a comprehensive regulatory network. Furthermore, we discover that TaSPL7/15, integral components of the aging-related flowering pathway, interact with the VRN1 promoter and VRN3 distal regulatory elements. These interactions finely regulate their expressions, consequently impacting the vernalization process and flowering. Conclusions Our study offers critical insights into wheat vernalization’s epigenomic dynamics and identifies the putative regulatory elements crucial for developing wheat germplasm with varied vernalization characteristics. It also establishes a vernalization-related transcriptional network, and uncovers that TaSPL7/15 from the aging pathway participates in vernalization by directly binding to the VRN1 promoter and VRN3 distal regulatory elements

sj-pdf-1-jcb-10.1177_0271678X221135419 - Supplemental material for An enriched environment improves long-term functional outcomes in mice after intracerebral hemorrhage by mechanisms that involve the Nrf2/BDNF/glutaminase pathway

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-jcb-10.1177_0271678X221135419 for An enriched environment improves long-term functional outcomes in mice after intracerebral hemorrhage by mechanisms that involve the Nrf2/BDNF/glutaminase pathway by Peijun Jia, Junmin Wang, Xiuhua Ren, Jinxin He, Shaoshuai Wang, Yinpei Xing, Danyang Chen, Xinling Zhang, Siqi Zhou, Xi Liu, Shangchen Yu, Zefu Li, Chao Jiang, Weidong Zang, Xuemei Chen and Jian Wang in Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism</p