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Stretchable strain sensor detects a wide range of strain variation and is therefore a key component in various applications. Unlike traditional ones made of elastomers doped with conductive components or fabricated with liquid conductors, ionically conductive hydrogel-based strain sensors remain conductive under large deformations and are biocompatible. However, dehydration is a challenging issue for the latter. Researchers have developed hydrogel-elastomer-based strain sensors where an elastomer matrix encapsulates a hydrogel circuit to prevent its dehydration. However, the reported multi-step approaches are generally time-consuming. Our group recently reported a multimaterial 3D printing approach that enables fast fabrication of such sensors, yet requires a self-built digital-light-processing-based multimaterial 3D printer. Here, we report a simple projection lithography method to fabricate hydrogel-elastomer-based stretchable strain sensors within 5 minutes. This method only requires a UV projector/lamp with photomasks; the chemicals are commercially available; the protocols for preparing the polymer precursors are friendly to users without chemistry background. Moreover, the manufacturing flexibility allows users to readily pattern the sensor circuit and attach the sensor to a 3D printed soft pneumatic actuator to enable strain sensing on the latter. The proposed approach paves a simple and versatile way to fabricate hydrogel-elastomer-based stretchable strain sensors and flexible electronic devices.

Thermally responsive shape memory polymers (SMPs) used in 4D printing are often reported to be activated by external heat sources or embedded stiff heaters. However, such heating strategies impede the practical application of 4D printing due to the lack of precise control over heating or the limited ability to accommodate the stretching during shape programming. Herein, we propose a novel 4D printing paradigm by fabricating stretchable heating circuits with fractal motifs via electric-field-driven microscale 3D printing of conductive paste for seamless integration into 3D printed structures with SMP components. By regulating the fractal order and printing/processing parameters, the overall electrical resistance and areal coverage of the circuits can be tuned to produce an efficient and uniform heating performance. Compared with serpentine structures, the resistance of fractal-based circuits remains relatively stable under both uniaxial and biaxial stretching. In practice, steady-state and transient heating modes can be respectively used during the shape programming and actuation phases. We demonstrate that this approach is suitable for 4D printed structures with shape programming by either uniaxial or biaxial stretching. Notably, the biaxial stretchability of fractal-based heating circuits enables the shape change between a planar structure and a 3D one with double curvature. The proposed strategy would offer more freedom in designing 4D printed structures and enable the manipulation of the latter in a controlled and selective manner.

This article proposes an approach of 3D printing structures consisting of stretchable hydrogels bonded with UV curable polymers., Hydrogel-polymer hybrids have been widely used for various applications such as biomedical devices and flexible electronics. However, the current technologies constrain the geometries of hydrogel-polymer hybrid to laminates consisting of hydrogel with silicone rubbers. This greatly limits functionality and performance of hydrogel-polymer–based devices and machines. Here, we report a simple yet versatile multimaterial 3D printing approach to fabricate complex hybrid 3D structures consisting of highly stretchable and high–water content acrylamide-PEGDA (AP) hydrogels covalently bonded with diverse UV curable polymers. The hybrid structures are printed on a self-built DLP-based multimaterial 3D printer. We realize covalent bonding between AP hydrogel and other polymers through incomplete polymerization of AP hydrogel initiated by the water-soluble photoinitiator TPO nanoparticles. We demonstrate a few applications taking advantage of this approach. The proposed approach paves a new way to realize multifunctional soft devices and machines by bonding hydrogel with other polymers in 3D forms.

4D printing is an emerging fabrication technology that enables 3D printed structures to change configuration over "time" in response to an environmental stimulus. Compared with other soft active materials used for 4D printing, shape-memory polymers (SMPs) have higher stiffness, and are compatible with various 3D printing technologies. Among them, ultraviolet (UV)-curable SMPs are compatible with Digital Light Processing (DLP)-based 3D printing to fabricate SMP-based structures with complex geometry and high-resolution. However, UV-curable SMPs have limitations in terms of mechanical performance, which significantly constrains their application ranges. Here, a mechanically robust and UV-curable SMP system is reported, which is highly deformable, fatigue resistant, and compatible with DLP-based 3D printing, to fabricate high-resolution (up to 2 µm), highly complex 3D structures that exhibit large shape change (up to 1240%) upon heating. More importantly, the developed SMP system exhibits excellent fatigue resistance and can be repeatedly loaded more than 10 000 times. The development of the mechanically robust and UV-curable SMPs significantly improves the mechanical performance of the SMP-based 4D printing structures, which allows them to be applied to engineering applications such as aerospace, smart furniture, and soft robots.

Head injury is the most common and fatal injury in car-pedestrian accidents. Due to the lack of human test data, real-world accident data is useful for the research on the mechanism and tolerance of head injuries. The objective of the present work is to investigate pedestrian head-brain injuries through real car-pedestrian accidents and evaluate the existed injury criteria. Seven car-to-pedestrian accidents in China were selected from the IVAC (Investigation of Vehicle Accident in Changsha) database. Accident reconstructions using multi-body models were conducted to determine the kinematic parameters associated with the injury and were used to measure head injury criteria. Kinematic parameters were input into a finite element model to run simulations on the head-brain and car interface to determine levels of brain tissue stress, strain, and brain tissue injury criteria. A binary logistic regression model was used to determine the probability of head injury risk associated with AIS3+ injuries (Abbreviated Injury Scale). The results showed that head injury criteria using kinematic parameters can effectively predict injury risk of a pedestrians’ head skull. Regarding brain injuries, physical parameters like coup/countercoup pressure are more effective predictors. The results of this study can be used as the background knowledge for pedestrian friendly car design.

Removing the oxide film and dirt on the surface of the aluminium alloy can improve the welding quality of the aluminium alloy. In this paper, the characteristics of picosecond and 100 nanosecond pulsed laser cleaning aluminium alloys are explored by changing the average laser power, spot overlap ratio and scanning trajectory overlap rate. The results show that the oxide laser removal depth and diameter are related to the average power. As the average laser power increases, the depth and diameter of the ablation pit increase. At the same average power, the nanosecond laser ablation depth is greater than the picosecond laser. To achieve good surface quality, the nanosecond laser requires a higher overlap rate than the picosecond laser. The high overlap rate results in a nanosecond laser cleaning efficiency that is much lower than that of a picosecond laser. More importantly, the surface quality obtained by picosecond laser cleaning is much better than nanosecond laser cleaning. In addition, the welding experiment shows that the laser cleaning pre-treatment can effectively improve the welding quality.

The aim of the present paper was to study the influence of neck muscle activation on head and neck injuries of vehicle occupants in frontal impacts. A mixed dummy-human finite element model was developed to simulate a frontal impact. The head-neck part of a Hybrid III dummy model was replaced by a well-validated head-neck FE model with passive and active muscle characteristics. The mixed dummy-human FE model was validated by 15 G frontal volunteer tests conducted in the Naval Biodynamics Laboratory. The effects of neck muscle activation on the head dynamic responses and neck injuries of occupants in three frontal impact intensities, low speed (10 km/h), medium speed (30 km/h), and high speed (50 km/h), were studied. The results showed that the mixed dummy-human FE model has good biofidelity. The activation of neck muscles can not only lower the head resultant acceleration under different impact intensities and the head angular acceleration in medium- and high-speed impacts, thereby reducing the risks of head injury, but also protect the neck from injury in low-speed impacts.

The aim of the present paper was to explore the effect of initial lesions on the course of femoral head necrosis. A fracture mechanics model of the femoral head was developed and validated using the computed tomography (CT) scan images of a healthy volunteer and material mechanics test results of fresh femur samples. The dynamic development of stresses and fractures of the femoral head with various initial lesions were simulated under various loads. The results showed that the initial lesion of the femoral head spreads faster and collapses deeper as the load increases. The location of the initial lesion has a significant effect on the collapse of the femoral head. The lesions in the anterior and lateral areas of the femoral head are more likely to accelerate the collapse of the femoral head than the lesions in other areas. This study is helpful in predicting the collapse risk and guiding the daily activities of patients with femoral head necrosis. Additionally, this study helps doctors to make better decisions about treatment options.

Background: Intracerebral hemorrhage is one of the most common injuries in vehicle accidents. The aim of this paper is to survey the injury mechanism of intracerebral hemorrhage in vehicle accidents, including contusion, subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), subdural hematoma (SDH) and diffuse axonal injury (DAI). Methods: A condensed overview is given based on the published studies in biomechanical studies on intracerebral hemorrhage. Animal tests, cadaver tests, accident investigations and numerical simulation are the main method used for the mechanism studies. Results: Angular velocity and acceleration can be used to predict these injuries and they are the main causation of DAI. Intracranial pressure is the main causation of coup/contrecoup contusion. Shear stress and strain contribute to the rupture of bridging veins that result in SDH, SAH. Conclusion: Injury mechanism of intracerebral hemorrhage in vehicle accidents is complicated that with multiple causations. In-depth works need to be carried out in mechanism studies especially for child head injuries.

Muscle activation plays an important role in head–neck dynamic response in vehicle accidents, especially in low speed impacts. The aim of the present study was to analyze the mechanical characteristics and dynamic stability of the muscle using coupled non-linear finite element model, which could be further applied for biomechanical study of head–neck system in car crash accidents. A rabbit tibialis anterior (TA) geometry model was developed. Two finite element models of TA were developed with coupled constitutive models. One coupled model was developed combining quasi-linear viscoelastic (QLV) elements and Hill type elements, and the other was developed combining hyperelastic rubber elements and Hill type elements, representing the passive behavior and active behavior, respectively. The models were validated via eccentric contractions tests under different strain rates published by Myers et al. Isometric Contraction and axial compression were also simulated via both models to evaluate the computational stability. The results showed that the coupled constitutive muscle models had a good biofidelity for the simulation of muscle activation. Both muscle models can fulfill the requirement of neck muscle system modeling for biomechanical study.