Developed in last decade, the shape memory polymers (SMP) have been gaining widespread attention for new product innovation. They are lightweight, have a high strain/shape recovery ability, are easy to process, and required properties can be tailored for a variety of applications. Recently a number of medical applications have been considered and investigated for polyurethane-based SMP material...

Traditional shape memory polymers (SMPs) are those capable of memorizing a temporary shape and recovering to the permanent shape upon heating. Although such a basic concept has been known for half a century, recent progresses have challenged the conventional understanding of the polymer shape memory effect and significantly expanded the practical potential of SMPs. In this article, notable rece...

Thermally actuated shape memory polymers (SMPs) interest, both academically and industrially, due to their ability to memorize a permanent shape that is set during processing and a temporary shape that is later programmed by manipulation above a critical temperature, either Tg or Tm. However, the thermal triggering process for SMPs is usually retarded compared to that of shape memory alloys, be...

A process for fabrication of shape memory alloy MEMS actuators on a elastomeric polymer substrate is described. These actuators are designed for use on innovative soft body robots. Patterned shape memory alloy (nitinol) is sputter deposited on a polyimide mesh structure. The mesh substrate acts as a bias spring to de-twin the shape memory alloy in the martensite phase. Significant portions of t...

Shape memory polymers are gaining significant interest as one of the major constituent materials for emerging field 4D printing. While 3D-printed metamaterials with shape show unique thermomechanical behaviors, their thermal transport properties have received relatively little attention. Here, we that in strongly depends on shape, solid volume fraction, and temperature radiation plays a critica...