Rethinking Materials and Nature
Anna Balazs, Distinguished Professor and John A. Swanson Chair of Engineering, Swanson School of Engineering
Balazs, elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering, a first for a Pitt faculty member, is renowned for her creative and imaginative pioneering work in the field referred to as biomimicry or soft robotics, in which synthetic materials in computational models display behavior similar to that of living creatures, with multiple materials interacting in cooperative and coordinated ways, representing unprecedented possibilities for creating entirely new materials for a vast range of applications.
With colleagues from Princeton University, she is researching the potential to induce two-dimensional polymer sheets to form spiral patterns under their own power without outside direction, a project inspired by the Henri Matisse painting “La Danse.” Such spirals are fundamental patterns of biological and physical organization, from the DNA double helix to spiral galaxies. Using computational modeling, multiple sheets of passive, uncoated polymer assembled themselves autonomously into a structure looking like a tower that collapsed into an interwoven, rotating pattern.
“The whole thing resembles a thread of twisted yarn being formed by a rotating spindle, which was used to make fibers for weaving,” Balazs explains, “except there is no spindle; the system naturally forms the intertwined, rotating structure.”
Self Assembling Spiral with Four Sheets
Dynamic self-assembly and self-rotation of four passive sheets in a fluid-filled chamber. (Raj Kumar Manna)