Making move toward vehicles that morph

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Professors Yet-Ming Chiang left and Steven Hall show components of their electrochemically actuated morphing rotor prototype (foreground) as well as a reduced-scale model (background) of a previous technology that uses piezoelectrics as the active ma ...
Professors Yet-Ming Chiang, left, and Steven Hall show components of their electrochemically actuated morphing rotor prototype (foreground) as well as a reduced-scale model (background) of a previous technology that uses piezoelectrics as the active materials. Photo / Donna Coveney

Picture a bird, effortlessly adjusting its wings to catch every current of air. Airplanes that could do the same would have many advantages over today's flying machines, including increased fuel efficiency. Now MIT engineers report they may have found a way for structures -- and materials -- to move in this way, essentially morphing from one shape into another.


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All News summaries for March 22, 2006

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