标题: Professor Wei Huang's HUST Team Develops a Bioinspired 3D-Printed Interlocking Exoskeleton with Adaptive Stiffness, Energy Absorption, and Flexibility [打印本页] 作者: admin 时间: 2026-11-3 20:13 标题: Professor Wei Huang's HUST Team Develops a Bioinspired 3D-Printed Interlocking Exoskeleton with Adaptive Stiffness, Energy Absorption, and Flexibility Source: Journal of Mechanical Engineering.
1. Research Background and Objectives
Flexible yet strong exoskeleton armor is vital in intelligent manufacturing, military applications, medicine, deep-sea exploration, and rescue. Traditional exoskeletons assembled from metal components struggle to combine low weight with flexibility. In nature, a seahorse's tail skeleton can withstand compressive forces up to 20,000 times its own weight while remaining flexible. A key challenge is how to draw on such biological structures and modern manufacturing technologies to develop new exoskeleton armor combining adaptive stiffness, excellent energy absorption, and good flexibility.
(, 下载次数: 0)
上传
点击文件名下载附件
2. Paper Highlights
1. Discovery of a new cooperative self-locking mechanism involving soft tissue and hard bone in the seahorse tail. In-situ micro-CT observations revealed for the first time the mechanical principles by which soft tissue and hard bone work together to self-lock under compression, providing a new biological model for bioinspired design.
2. Proposal of a bioinspired exoskeleton structure integrating rigid and flexible elements through 3D printing. Inspired by this mechanism, the team designed and fabricated a flexible exoskeleton in one piece using multi-material 3D printing. It combines rigid and flexible materials to achieve low weight and flexibility that are difficult to reconcile in traditional metal structures.
3. Compression-induced adaptive stiffness and energy absorption. The structure becomes stiffer as deformation increases during compression. It can withstand a load 3,000 times its own weight while maintaining structural integrity at 30% large deformation and excellent flexibility, providing a new option for extreme environments such as deep-sea exploration.
3. Experimental Methods
The study began with CT characterization, quasi-static compression, cyclic compression, and drop-weight impact tests on seahorse tails, combined with in-situ CT and SEM observations of deformation and damage. Based on the structural characteristics and biomechanical mechanisms, the team designed a bioinspired exoskeleton combining soft and hard materials and fabricated it in one piece using PolyJet multi-material 3D printing.
Quasi-static compression, cyclic loading, and drop-ball impact tests evaluated the model's compression, impact, and fatigue resistance and elastic recovery. Finite-element simulations of stress distribution and deformation validated the self-locking variable-stiffness mechanism. Bending, twisting, and grasping tests further confirmed the bioinspired exoskeleton's capacity for flexible deformation.
4. Conclusions
The study confirmed that the soft–hard interlocking structure of a seahorse tail enables compression-induced self-locking and variable stiffness, combining high specific strength, impact resistance, and excellent flexibility. It provides a biological prototype and design criteria for lightweight flexible protection. Multi-material 3D printing can rapidly customize complex bioinspired configurations and has engineering application potential.
Future work could optimize topology and material systems further and extend applications to flexible exoskeletons, protection for deep-sea equipment, and wearable human–robot collaboration systems, or to lightweight impact-resistant equipment for extreme environments. The approach offers significant engineering value and research prospects.
Cited Paper
Yunchen Fu, Tianqi Liu, Jianqiao Hu, Hengxu Song, Bin Wu, Wei Huang, A bioinspired 3D printed interlocking architected exoskeleton armor with adaptive stiffness, energy absorption and flexibility, Additive Manufacturing Frontiers, 2026, 200344, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amf.2026.200344.
Wei Huang is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and has been selected for a national high-level young talent program. His research focuses on life, materials, and bioinspired manufacturing under extreme conditions, including high-strength, tough, impact-resistant bioinspired composites and the design, forming, and manufacturing of intelligent bioinspired exoskeleton systems.
By exploring and imitating biological tissues and materials such as bones, teeth, horns, and hooves, he develops bioinspired tissue-engineering materials, exoskeleton materials, and intelligent protective systems. Major research results have appeared in Nature Materials, PNAS, Advanced Materials, Matter, Advanced Functional Materials, Acta Biomaterialia, and other leading international journals. His honors include the International Association of Advanced Materials Scientist Medal and a collective China Youth May Fourth Medal.
Team Research Directions
1. Multiscale structures and mechanics of natural biological materials.
2. Bioinspired manufacturing processes and equipment for high-strength, impact-resistant composites.
3. Biomaterials and their low-temperature additive manufacturing methods.
4. Design and manufacturing of intelligent bioinspired exoskeleton systems.
AI-translated from an article by Beijixiong on Nanjixiong, originally published on 2026-10-28. Text and images retain the original source attribution. Read the original Chinese article
欢迎光临 All Voice of China 3D Printing (https://panda3dp.com/)