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Updated: Jun 26, 2025

Fabrication of a Bioactive, PCL-based "Self-fitting" Shape Memory Polymer Scaffold
Published on: October 23, 2015
Reconfigurable 4D printing via mechanically robust covalent adaptable network shape memory polymer
Honggeng Li1,2,3, Biao Zhang4, Haitao Ye1,2,5
1Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Soft Mechanics & Smart Manufacturing, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China.
Abstract:
4D printing enables 3D printed structures to change shape over "time" in response to environmental stimulus. Because of relatively high modulus, shape memory polymers (SMPs) have been widely used for 4D printing. However, most SMPs for 4D printing are thermosets, which only have one permanent shape. Despite the efforts that implement covalent adaptable networks (CANs) into SMPs to achieve shape reconfigurability, weak thermomechanical properties of the current CAN-SMPs exclude them from practical applications. Here, we report reconfigurable 4D printing via mechanically robust CAN-SMPs (MRC-SMPs), which have high deformability at both programming and reconfiguration temperatures (>1400%), high Tg (75°C), and high room temperature modulus (1.06 GPa). The high printability for DLP high-resolution 3D printing allows MRC-SMPs to create highly complex SMP 3D structures that can be reconfigured multiple times under large deformation. The demonstrations show that the reconfigurable 4D printing allows one printed SMP structure to fulfill multiple tasks.
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