title: Designing allostery-inspired response in mechanical networks.
abstract: Recent advances in designing metamaterials have demonstrated that global mechanical properties of disordered spring networks can be tuned by selectively modifying only a small subset of bonds. Here, using a computationally efficient approach, we extend this idea to tune more general properties of networks. With nearly complete success, we are able to produce a strain between any two target nodes in a network in response to an applied source strain on any other pair of nodes by removing only ∼1% of the bonds. We are also able to control multiple pairs of target nodes, each with a different individual response, from a single source, and to tune multiple independent source/target responses simultaneously into a network. We have fabricated physical networks in macroscopic 2D and 3D systems that exhibit these responses. This work is inspired by the long-range coupled conformational changes that constitute allosteric function in proteins. The fact that allostery is a common means for regulation in biological molecules suggests that it is a relatively easy property to develop through evolution. In analogy, our results show that long-range coupled mechanical responses are similarly easy to achieve in disordered networks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104.
authors.forename: Jason W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Rocks
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637.
authors.forename: Nidhi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pashine
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.
authors.forename: Irmgard
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Bischofberger
authors.affiliation: School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.
authors.forename: Carl P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Goodrich
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104; ajliu@upenn.edu.
authors.forename: Andrea J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637.
authors.forename: Sidney R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Nagel
keywords: allostery; disordered networks; mechanical metamaterials; proteins; tunable response