Fig. 3

Energy-dissipation properties of hydrogel fibres. a Stress-strain curves and energy dissipation of hydrogel fibres at different humidity values. b Stress-strain curves, damping capacity, and energy dissipation of hydrogel fibres progressively stretched to different strains. c Energy dissipation of hydrogel fibres supercontracted to different degrees and stretched to different lengths. l₀: initial length of the hydrogel fibre. For a–c the twist density was 3 turns mm⁻¹, and the deformation rate was 27.8% s⁻¹. d Comparison of the energy dissipation and damping capacity of the hydrogel fibres (green stars) in this work with those of other typical energy-dissipation materials, such as spider silks (red symbols) and synthetic materials (yellow symbols), reported in the literature. The numbers shown in the graphs correspond to the references. The hydrogel fibres presented different twist densities and were tested at different deformation rates. All the hydrogel fibres contained 0.1 wt% VSNPs and 20 mM ZnCl₂. The studies with both the energy dissipation and damping capacity data reported are selected. The error bars mean the s.d. from five measurements