Issue 13, 2021

Magttice: a lattice model for hard-magnetic soft materials

Abstract

Magnetic actuation has emerged as a powerful and versatile mechanism for diverse applications, ranging from soft robotics, biomedical devices to functional metamaterials. This highly interdisciplinary research calls for an easy to use and efficient modeling/simulation platform that can be leveraged by researchers with different backgrounds. Here we present a lattice model for hard-magnetic soft materials by partitioning the elastic deformation energy into lattice stretching and volumetric change, so-called ‘magttice’. Magnetic actuation is realized through prescribed nodal forces in magttice. We further implement the model into the framework of a large-scale atomic/molecular massively parallel simulator (LAMMPS) for highly efficient parallel simulations. The magttice is first validated by examining the deformation of ferromagnetic beam structures, and then applied to various smart structures, such as origami plates and magnetic robots. After investigating the static deformation and dynamic motion of a soft robot, the swimming of the magnetic robot in water, like jellyfish's locomotion, is further studied by coupling the magttice and lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). These examples indicate that the proposed magttice model can enable more efficient mechanical modeling and simulation for the rational design of magnetically driven smart structures.

Graphical abstract: Magttice: a lattice model for hard-magnetic soft materials

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
15 Sept. 2020
Accepted
29 Nov. 2020
First published
07 Dec. 2020

Soft Matter, 2021,17, 3560-3568

Author version available

Magttice: a lattice model for hard-magnetic soft materials

H. Ye, Y. Li and T. Zhang, Soft Matter, 2021, 17, 3560 DOI: 10.1039/D0SM01662D

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