Mechanics of Functional Materials and Structures

Water propelled upward from a deformable structure during a fluid transport experiment.

Reverse snap-through of bistable conical shells drives rapid fluid ejection. The mechanism is investigated for programmable fluid delivery.

Liu, P., Menghani, R. R., Avila, R. Programmable Fluid Delivery by Reverse Snap-Through of Bistable Conical Shells. Under review (2026).

Overview of a magnetically actuated mechanical metasurface and its applications.

Magnetic actuation reshapes a soft metasurface, while integrated sensing tracks its deformation. This enables bidirectional human–machine interaction for haptics, object manipulation, and three-dimensional displays.

Gooyoon Chung^†, Jeongmin Yoo^†, Pei Liu^†, et al. Magnetically levitated metasurface enabling tangible and bidirectional human-machine interaction. Science Advances 12, eaeg0480 (2026).

† Equal contribution.

Simulation and experimental image of a butterfly-shaped structure.

Physical anchoring guides a planar precursor into a three-dimensional butterfly-shaped structure, with simulations compared against experiments. The approach expands material choices for mechanically assembled functional structures.

Yeonhee Heo^†, Pei Liu^†, Jeongmin Yoo^†, et al. Physical Anchoring-Assisted Mechanically Guided Assembly for Material-Independent 3D Mesostructures. Small 22, e74211 (2026).

† Equal contribution.