VOA常速英语:Shape-Changing Materials to Enter Everyday Life

An assistant at the morphing matter lab drops a few pieces of flat dry pasta into a pot of boiling water. In a few minutes these rigid flat strips will turn into soft spiral shapes called fusilli that can hold a lot of tasty sauce.Packaging dry pasta in flat form saves a lot of space and packing material.
变形物质实验室的一名助手将几块扁平的意大利面倒入一锅沸水中。几分钟后，这些坚硬的面条就变成了柔软的螺旋粉，这种螺旋形状的意大利面可以容纳更多美味的酱汁。包装扁平的干意大利面可以节省大量的空间和包装材料。

The same goes for other morphing materials. For example you can have all your furniture pieces flat impact, shaped home, plug it into the wall with the heat from the electricity you can trigger to self-assemble into the right table or chair you want.
其他变形材料也是如此。例如把所有的家具塑造成能够放在墙上的平直形状，可以通过触发热量让它们自动组装成符合使用者心意的桌子或椅子。

The labs director, assistant professor Lining Yao says making the material bend into a certain shape requires learning about its physical properties.We are programming some pre-strain within the thermoplastic network on a micro scale. Even more interesting are materials that may be able to change shape back and forth like this morphing paper.
实验室主任、助理教授姚李宁说，要使材料弯曲成某种形状，就需要了解其物理性质。我们小规模的对热塑性网络中一些预应变进行了编程。更有趣的是像这种变形纸一样的可以反复变化的材料。

For example a garment that can response to your sweat and automatically open and close up flaps on the back to keep your body cool or warm. The question is how expensive would it be to manufacture such materials.We try by the end of the project to figure out a very easy recipe, both software and hardware to make it very available for the users we targeted towards. Yao says researchers are still learning how to control different morphing materials but shape changing pasta may be the first to find its way to customers.
例如一种可以感应人体汗水的衣服，能够自动打开和关闭背部的布料来给人体降温或保暖。但问题是制造这种材料需要多少钱？在项目结束时，我们试图找出一个包括硬件和软件且能让我们的目标用户都能接受的非常简单的方法。姚说研究人员们仍在研究如何控制不同的变形材料，能变形的意大利面也许是首先拥有客户群体的变型产品。

George Putic VOA news Pittsburgh
乔治·普提治美国之音匹兹堡报道