Mechanical engineering articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    A design approach arrests collapse propagation in buildings after major initial failures by ensuring that specific elements fail before the failure of the most important components for global stability.

    • Nirvan Makoond
    • , Andri Setiawan
    •  & Jose M. Adam

  • Article |

    A metafluid with programmable compressibility, optical behaviour and viscosity is realized by mixing deformable spherical shells that undergo buckling within an incompressible fluid; the versatility of these metafluids opens up numerous opportunities for functionality.

    • Adel Djellouli
    • , Bert Van Raemdonck
    •  & Katia Bertoldi

  • Article |

    A local driving mechanism for solitons that accelerates both solitons and antisolitons in the same direction, called non-reciprocal driving, is introduced, showing a subtle interplay between non-reciprocity and topological solitons and providing waveguiding and wave-processing possibilities for other fields.

    • Jonas Veenstra
    • , Oleksandr Gamayun
    •  & Corentin Coulais

  • Article
    | Open Access

    We introduce a scalable, high-resolution, 3D printing technique for the fabrication of shape-specific particles based on roll-to-roll continuous liquid interface production, enabling direct integration within biomedical, analytical and advanced materials applications.

    • Jason M. Kronenfeld
    • , Lukas Rother
    •  & Joseph M. DeSimone

  • Article |

    We successfully rebuild an approximate void-free additive manufacturing microstructure in Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy by the development of a void-free additive manufacturing processing technique through an understanding of the asynchronism of phase transformation and grain growth.

    • Zhan Qu
    • , Zhenjun Zhang
    •  & Zhefeng Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A mechanical design is developed for the fabrication of ultralong, fracture-free and perturbation-free semiconductor fibres to address the increasing demand for flexible and wearable optoelectronics.

    • Zhixun Wang
    • , Zhe Wang
    •  & Lei Wei

  • Article
    | Open Access

    We have developed an automated and high-throughput, three-dimensional, vision-controlled inkjet deposition process that enables the high-resolution, contactless printing of a range of materials with varying elastic moduli to create complex structures and robots.

    • Thomas J. K. Buchner
    • , Simon Rogler
    •  & Robert K. Katzschmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Asynchronous flight in all major groups of insects likely arose from a single common ancestor with reversions to a synchronous flight mode enabled by shifts back and forth between different regimes in the same set of dynamic parameters.

    • Jeff Gau
    • , James Lynch
    •  & Simon Sponberg

  • Article |

    To demonstrate the power of multistability, a specific class of groovy metasheets is introduced as a new shape-morphing platform that allows repeated switching from the flat state to multiple, precisely selected and stable three-dimensional shapes.

    • A. S. Meeussen
    •  & M. van Hecke

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An autonomous system is described that combines deep reinforcement learning with onboard sensors collecting data from the physical world, enabling it to fly faster than human world champion drone pilots around a race track.

    • Elia Kaufmann
    • , Leonard Bauersfeld
    •  & Davide Scaramuzza

  • Article |

    An algorithm is developed to design a shape, a trajectoid, that can trace any given infinite periodic trajectory when rolling down a slope, finding unexpected implications for quantum and classical optics.

    • Yaroslav I. Sobolev
    • , Ruoyu Dong
    •  & Bartosz A. Grzybowski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors report a high-throughput combinatorial printing method capable of fabricating materials with compositional gradients at microscale spatial resolution, demonstrating a variety of high-throughput printing strategies and applications in combinatorial doping, functional grading and chemical reaction.

    • Minxiang Zeng
    • , Yipu Du
    •  & Yanliang Zhang

  • Article |

    A study describes a wood-based, three-tailed, biodegradable seed carrier that self-drills into the ground in response to moisture fluctuations with a success rate higher than that of natural self-drilling seeds.

    • Danli Luo
    • , Aditi Maheshwari
    •  & Lining Yao

  • Article |

    A design strategy termed ‘adaptive morphogenesis’ enables a robot inspired by aquatic and terrestrial turtles to adapt its limb morphology and gait to specialize for locomotion in different environments.

    • Robert Baines
    • , Sree Kalyan Patiballa
    •  & Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio

  • Article |

    A new approach to charging energy-dense electric vehicle batteries, using temperature modulation with a dual-salt electrolyte, promises a range in excess of 500,000 miles using only rapid (under 12 minute) charges.

    • Chao-Yang Wang
    • , Teng Liu
    •  & Brian D. McCarthy

  • Article |

    A mechanical integrated circuit material based on Boolean mathematics and reconfigurable electrical circuits is created to demonstrate scalable information processing in synthetic, engineered soft matter.

    • Charles El Helou
    • , Benjamin Grossmann
    •  & Ryan L. Harne

  • Article |

    Lab experiments show that spontaneously propagating ruptures navigate fault regions through intermittent slip with dramatic friction evolution, providing support that weakening mechanisms may allow ruptures to break through stable faults.

    • V. Rubino
    • , N. Lapusta
    •  & A. J. Rosakis

  • Article |

    A comparison of the energetics of jumping between biological and engineered systems shows that engineered systems can greatly increase energy limits using the process of work multiplication, and this analysis leads to the demonstration of a 30-centimetre device jumping over 30 metres.

    • Elliot W. Hawkes
    • , Charles Xiao
    •  & Günter Niemeyer

  • Perspective |

    The concept of 'Embodied Energy'—in which the components of a robot or device both store energy and provide a mechanical or structural function—is put forward, along with specific robot-design principles.

    • Cameron A. Aubin
    • , Benjamin Gorissen
    •  & Robert F. Shepherd

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Three-dimensional reconstructions of morphology and flight mechanics of the beetle Paratuposa placentis reveal adaptations that enable extremely small insects to fly at speeds similar to those of much larger insects.

    • Sergey E. Farisenkov
    • , Dmitry Kolomenskiy
    •  & Alexey A. Polilov

  • Article |

    An all-in-one methodology for fabricating soft robotics reported here uses interfacial flows in elastomers that cure to produce actuators that can be tailored to suit applications from artificial muscles to grippers.

    • Trevor J. Jones
    • , Etienne Jambon-Puillet
    •  & P.-T. Brun

  • Article |

    Carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels can be produced using sunlight and air via a thermochemical solar fuel production chain, thus representing a pathway towards the long-term decarbonization of the aviation sector.

    • Remo Schäppi
    • , David Rutz
    •  & Aldo Steinfeld

  • Perspective |

    Computing approaches based on mechanical mechanisms are discussed, with a view towards a framework in which adaptable materials and structures act as a distributed information processing network.

    • Hiromi Yasuda
    • , Philip R. Buskohl
    •  & Jordan R. Raney

  • Article |

    A structured fabric constructed of linked hollow polyhedral particles (resembling chain mail) can be simply and reversibly tuned between flexible and rigid states; when it is compressed, its linked particles become jammed.

    • Yifan Wang
    • , Liuchi Li
    •  & Chiara Daraio

  • Article |

    Origami-inspired multistable structures that can be inflated from flat to three dimensions have been designed; a library of foldable shapes is created and then combined to build metre-scale functional structures.

    • David Melancon
    • , Benjamin Gorissen
    •  & Katia Bertoldi

  • Article |

    A two-tiered dynamic design strategy achieves topological transformations of two-dimensional polymeric cellular microstructures in a reversible and temporally controllable manner through exposure to different liquids.

    • Shucong Li
    • , Bolei Deng
    •  & Joanna Aizenberg

  • Article |

    A free-swimming soft robot inspired by deep-sea creatures, with artificial muscle, power and control electronics spread across a polymer matrix, successfully adapts to high pressure and operates in the deep ocean.

    • Guorui Li
    • , Xiangping Chen
    •  & Wei Yang

  • Perspective |

    Opportunities for the application of fibrillated cellulose materials—which can be extracted from renewable resources—and broader manufacturing issues of scale-up, sustainability and synergy with the paper-making industry are discussed.

    • Tian Li
    • , Chaoji Chen
    •  & Liangbing Hu

  • Article |

    Strain gauges with both high sensitivity and high mechanical resilience, based on strain-mediated contact in anisotropically resistive structures, are demonstrated within a sensor-integrated, textile-based sleeve that can recognize human hand motions via muscle deformations.

    • Oluwaseun A. Araromi
    • , Moritz A. Graule
    •  & Robert J. Wood

  • Article |

    A jigsaw-style configuration of interlocking structures identified in the elytra of the remarkably tough diabolical ironclad beetle, Phloeodes diabolicus, is used to inspire crush-resistant multilayer composites for engineering joints.

    • Jesus Rivera
    • , Maryam Sadat Hosseini
    •  & David Kisailus

  • Article |

    Cooling efficiency is greatly increased by directly embedding liquid cooling into electronic chips, using microfluidics-based heat sinks that are designed in conjunction with the electronics within the same semiconductor substrate.

    • Remco van Erp
    • , Reza Soleimanzadeh
    •  & Elison Matioli

  • Article |

    A new class of voltage-controllable electrochemical actuators that are compatible with silicon processing are used to produce over one million sub-hundred-micrometre walking robots on a single four-inch wafer.

    • Marc Z. Miskin
    • , Alejandro J. Cortese
    •  & Itai Cohen

  • Article |

    A Damascus-like steel consisting of alternating hard and soft layers is created by using a laser additive manufacturing technique and digital control of the processing parameters.

    • Philipp Kürnsteiner
    • , Markus Benjamin Wilms
    •  & Dierk Raabe

  • Article |

    Layered nanocomposites fabricated using a continuous and scalable process achieve properties exceeding those of natural nacre, the result of stiffened matrix polymer chains confined between highly aligned nanosheets.

    • Chuangqi Zhao
    • , Pengchao Zhang
    •  & Lei Jiang

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