Sleek BioSuit Wraps Astronauts in Coils

Sleek BioSuit Wraps Astronauts in Coils
Sep-20-14
Researchers have come a bit closer to creating a skintight BioSuit that could one day replace the bulky suits worn by astronauts.

The suit, created by a team at MIT, is designed to offer the same level of compression as a conventional spacesuit, but by using mechanical action instead of gas. And although such suits have been proposed before, the difficulty in getting in and out of the suits has stymied researchers—until now.

The BioSuit is embedded with an array of coils made from a nickel-titanium shape-memory alloy that will bend and twist, then return to original form when heated. In tests, the team placed the coils inside an elastic cuff and attached each coil to a small thread in the cuff. When a heat-generating voltage was applied to the coils, they contracted and tightened the cuff. The team's next step is finding a way to keep the suit tight during use.

Image: The 'self-closing' cuff

Sleek BioSuit Wraps Astronauts in Coils


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[DISCOVERY.COM]
[NEWSOFFICE.MIT.EDU]
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