{"id":219643,"date":"2025-08-08T04:30:49","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T09:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/programmable-soft-material-bends-bounces-and-absorbs-energy-on-demand"},"modified":"2025-08-08T04:30:49","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T09:30:49","slug":"programmable-soft-material-bends-bounces-and-absorbs-energy-on-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/programmable-soft-material-bends-bounces-and-absorbs-energy-on-demand","title":{"rendered":"Programmable soft material bends, bounces and absorbs energy on demand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/programmable-soft-material-bends-bounces-and-absorbs-energy-on-demand2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and their collaborators have created a new class of programmable soft materials that can absorb impacts like never before, while also changing shape when heated.<\/p>\n<p>The research\u2014which includes collaborators from Harvard University, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Sandia National Laboratories and Oregon State University\u2014opens the door to smarter, lighter and more resilient materials that respond to the world around them. The research is <a href=\"https:\/\/advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/adma.202420048\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Advanced Materials.<\/p>\n<p>Built from liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs)\u2014rubbery polymers that shift in response to heat, light or stress\u2014the team 3D-printed the materials into carefully engineered lattice structures. These lattices can be designed to absorb energy, stiffen, soften or even change shape, depending on their architecture and environmental conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and their collaborators have created a new class of programmable soft materials that can absorb impacts like never before, while also changing shape when heated. The research\u2014which includes collaborators from Harvard University, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Sandia National Laboratories and Oregon State University\u2014opens the door to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,1635],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-materials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}