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About

We study the interplay between geometry and function, at different scales, applied to a variety of mechanical systems including soft robots, metamaterials, deployable structures, etc. Through innovative designs, we leverage material intelligence and structural superiority to create novel and functional robots and materials, addressing the grand challenges in health and sustainability.

Research Overview

Growth Rules for Irregular Architected Materials
We uncover fundamental structure–property relationships in irregular materials using a growth-inspired program, identifying rules to control mechanical properties by varying topology and geometry.
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Irregular Materials
4D Printing of Active Tensegrity
We exploit stimulus-responsive polymers to create actively deployable 3D tensegrity structures. Modular design allows for dramatic global volume expansion and shape change.
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Tensegrity 1 Tensegrity 2
Geometric Mechanics of Morph Origami
A four-vertex origami unit cell capable of continuous morphing between modes. This metamaterial allows for mode-locking and tunable switching of Poisson's ratio.
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Morph Origami
Scalable Soft Robotic Jet Swimmer
Inspired by cephalopods, we developed a scalable jet swimmer driven by pulsatile artificial muscles and soft chamber buckling, enabling rapid and efficient underwater propulsion.
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Jet Swimmer
Nonlinear Mechanics of Non-rigid Origami (MERLIN)
Introducing MERLIN software: An efficient computational approach implementing nonlinear mechanics to model large global displacements and deformation behavior of non-rigid origami.
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MERLIN Interface Deformation Example
Bistable Hypar Origami Metasurfaces
Proving that folded hypar origami is invariantly a hyperbolic paraboloid. We harness its bistability to create multistable metasurfaces with programmable non-Euclidean geometries.
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Hypar Origami
Knotted Artificial Muscles for Deepwater
Using braided knots of 3D printed LCE fibers, we created artificial muscles capable of high stroke and fast contractions, robust enough to operate in deep-sea environments.
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Knotted Muscles
Robotic Surfaces for Object Manipulation
A soft robotic surface consisting of active LCE networks that allows for large, reprogrammable shape morphing into smooth 3D geometries to manipulate objects.
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Robotic Surface
Bio-inspired Shrimp Origami Metamaterial
A novel origami pattern with application to multi-phase architected metamaterials whose phase transition is achieved mechanically by snap-through, resembling natural phase transitions.
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Shrimp Origami 1 Shrimp Origami 2

Latest News

Sep 02, 2024
Congratulations to group member Wenhui Chen for winning National Scholarship and President's Fellowship of Peking University!
May 11, 2024
Prof. Liu won the Outstanding Young Scholar Award at the 3rd China Metamaterials Conference.
Apr 20, 2024
Group member Wenhui Chen's paper about artificial muscles was published on Advanced Materials.
Aug 06, 2022
Prof. Liu delivered an online seminar for CAS Shenyang Institute of Automation.
July 27, 2022
Prof. Liu delivered a seminar for Tsinghua University, Laboratory of Flexible Electronics Technology.
July 05, 2022
Prof. Liu delivered an online seminar for Southeastern University, School of Civil Engineering.
June 22, 2022
Prof. Liu and co-authors Prof. Glaucio Paulino and Prof. Tomohiro Tachi have been awarded the 2022 ASME Melville Medal.
June 19, 2022
Prof. Liu delivered an online seminar for Peking University Third Hospital, Cardiology Department.