WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- A study published on Thursday in the journal Science reported a strategy to fabricate materials that become stronger in response to mechanical stress, similar to the process of muscle growth.
The findings could pave the way for long-lasting materials that can adapt and strengthen based on surrounding conditions.
Muscle fibers tend to break down as a result of training at the gym and then lead to new, stronger fibers with additional amino acids.
Gong Jianping and her team from Hokkaido University in Japan developed a strategy using "double-network hydrogels" resembling the building process of skeletal muscles.
Those hydrogels are a soft but tough material made of about 85 percent of water and two polymer networks: one rigid and brittle and the other soft and stretchable, according to the study.
Molecules inside the solution can be joined to form larger compounds called polymers. The solution is like the circulating blood and the molecules are like amino acids.
A stretch of the hydrogel can break some of its rigid polymer chains and trigger the joining up of molecules absorbed into the hydrogel, thus strengthening it.
The hydrogel's strength and stiffness can improve 1.5 and 23 times, respectively, and the weight of the polymers increase 86 percent, according to the study.
