mathers@titan.trl.oz (Steven Mathers) (03/06/90)
I remember seeing a segment on 'Beyond 2000' about a new plastic-ish substance being developed. This was about a year or so ago, now. the interesting property of this stuff is that in a natural state it is a viscous white liquid, but whith the application of an electrical current, it goes hard pretty quickly. Almost instantaneously. How hard it gets depends on the voltage applied (if I remember correctly). the sugested use of this stuff is a substitute for eleaborate mechanical gear and braking systems. phew. Ok, my questions are: What does anyone know about this stuff? 'Beyond 2000' is a fairly glitzy show, so I didnt get any real particulars. What is the progress on it's development? It occured to me that it may have a use for developing elegant artificial limbs/ robotics, given the following assumptions: 1) The electrical charge applied to render the substance hard is not prohibitive. 2) That (Im reaching back to high school physics here) like most substances -- except water -- this stuff will take up less volume when it hardens. My idea is to put the stuff in long thin tubes, in a sort of hydralic cylinder type arrangement, and let the vaccume force caused by the reduction in volume when the substance goes from liquid to solid, do the work. So this would be a sort of artificial muscle arrangement. Whack a bunch of these in an artificial limb, mimicking the important muscles in an arm, say, and put these under the electrical control of nerve impulses via some amplifiers. What do you think?
wlanders@thunder.lakeheadu.ca ("Wendy L. Anderson") (03/07/90)
mathers@TITAN Your idea would only work if the plastic returns to the liquid state afer the electric current has been removed. If I recall correctly such is not the case with the plastic outlined on "Beyond 2000". Wendy wlanders@thunder.lakeheadu.ca