Engineering Processable, Tough Hydrogels with Biological Activity

该项目旨在设计一种新型的坚韧水凝胶，以解决复杂的软结构和坚固结构的工程问题。与现有的材料相比，这些水凝胶具有优越的性能，因为它们具有生物活性，可通过各种制造技术进行加工，具有弹性，并且具有快速自我恢复的能力，是软组织的理想选择。它们的物理性质可以通过修改其成分来调节，从而可以构建复杂的无缝结构，例如具有各向异性特性的阀门管道。该项目的预期成果包括对材料设计、多物理场建模和多材料增材制造的新见解，可广泛应用于软机器人和医疗植入物。

The project aims to design a new class of tough hydrogels to address issues in engineering complex soft and robust structures. These hydrogels have superior properties compared with current materials as they are biologically active, processable by various manufacturing techniques, elastic and have a capacity for rapid self-recovery that are ideal for soft tissues. Their physical property is tunable by modification of their compositions that enable construction of complex seamless structure such as valved conduit with anistropic property. Expected outcomes of this project include new insights into material design, multi-physics modelling, and multi-material additive manufacturing for broad applications in soft robotics and medical implants.