THUNDER HFRI R&D Project

Thermal stimuli-responsive 3D printed electroactive polymer nanocomposites towards 4D “programmable” geometries (THUNDER) THUNDER is a multi-disciplinary low-technology readiness level (TRL) 24-month proposal perfectly aligned with the Hellenic Foundation for Research & Innovation HFRI’s funding policy of basic research, aiming to deliver: “Unique architectures, high performance, lightweight and low-cost all polymer three-dimensional printed (3DP) soft actuator devices based on new materials with electrothermal- Joule heating property, exhibiting temperature- (T) responsive behavior towards 4D-printed (4DP) components, being the key in modern high-end applications, e.g. soft robotics, biomedical, etc. products. THUNDER will develop advanced 3DP structures based on new “soft” polymeric materials towards final 4DP soft ETA devices, and all these towards potential soft robotics applications. The project activities will be implemented within seven (7) workpackages (WPs). The high Scientific Impact and Excellence of THUNDER is proven by its multi-disciplinary nature in the consortium and previously published novel research work by Hellenic Mediterranean University: HMU (Prof’s Lazaros Tzounis and Prof. Panagiotis Polygerinos), Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas: FORTH (Prof’s Vagelis Harmandaris and Dimitris Vlassopoulos), University of Patras: UPAT (Prof. Vlasis Mavrantzas), and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki: AUTH (Prof. Kontantinos Papagelis). Project Duration: 24 months (2024-2025) Funding acquisition: THUNDER project received funding from the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) under the HFRI Greece 2.0 Basic Research Financing Action (Horizontal support of all Sciences) Sub-action II Funding Projects in Leading-Edge Sectors (Project ID Number: 15515).