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Home > Featured Stories > Innovation and Discovery > August 2007 > Fabrics That Flex ... MuscleFabrics That Flex ... Muscle
NC State textiles professor Tushar Ghosh (pictured above) and engineering professor John Muth have developed "smart textiles" that mimic human muscles.
Fibers that mimic human muscle. Woven materials in place of sheet metal in cars and planes. Clothing that blocks or even kills harmful pathogens.
At North Carolina State University, the future fabrics of your life are now. Researchers are working on a variety of applications commonly called smart textiles—fibers, fabrics and other materials that "think."
In experiments by textiles professor Tushar Ghosh and engineering professor John Muth, plastic tube structures shaped like human muscle strands exhibited movement performance like human muscles when electric currents were applied. The polyurethane and silicone tubes used in the tests were the first artificial muscle-like fibers to be produced in a lab, and the findings hold promise for breakthroughs in fields including robotics, prosthetics, and biomedicine.
“The muscles in our bodies are made of fibers, and if we can mimic those fibers, get them down to scale and bundle them in the same way, we believe we can make very useful devices with them,” Ghosh says.
NC State researchers are involved in a number of automotive-related initiatives in which textile materials are increasingly used in some obvious and not-so-obvious places in car manufacturing. Researchers are working on woven composites that might one day replace sheet metal, providing lighter and stronger materials for a vehicle’s exterior.
From the skin of cars to protecting human skin, scientists at NC State have produced turnout gear for firefighters and first responders that protect against chemical and biological agents. Similar apparel advancements include smart fabric clothing that can monitor vital signs.
