464872 Topology Free Folding Mechanism for Polyhedral Nets

Thursday, November 17, 2016: 3:51 PM
Yosemite B (Hilton San Francisco Union Square)
Paul Dodd1, Pablo F. Damasceno2 and Sharon C. Glotzer1, (1)Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, (2)Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, CA

A form of self-assembly, “self-folding” presents an alternative approach to the creation of reconfigurable, responsive materials with applications ranging from robotics to drug design. However, the complexity of interactions present in biological and engineered systems that undergo folding makes it challenging to isolate the main factors controlling their assembly and dis-assembly. Here we use computer simulations of simple, minimalistic self-foldable structures and investigate their stochastic folding process. By dynamically accessing all the microstates that lead to, or inhibit, successful folding, we show that the mechanisms by which general stochastic systems achieve their native structures can be identified and used to design rules for optimized folding propensity.

Extended Abstract: File Not Uploaded
See more of this Session: Computational Studies of Self-Assembly
See more of this Group/Topical: Engineering Sciences and Fundamentals