An oral-care implement including a filament comprising an external material and at least a first internal material. The filament includes an elongated flexible body having a length, a longitudinal axis, and a longitudinal outer surface comprising the external material, the elongated body terminating with a tip having a tip surface comprising the external material, wherein the tip surface has therein a plurality of craters distributed throughout the tip surface in a predetermined pattern, each of the craters having a surface edge of a predetermined size and a predetermined shape, walls extending longitudinally from the surface edge and comprising the external material, and a bottom comprising the at least first internal material and situated at a depth from the surface edge, the surface edge being formed by the walls and the tip surface.

Systems, devices and methods are provided for fabricating anisotropic polymer materials. According to various embodiments, a fluidic device is employed to distribute a polymer solution and a flow-confining solution in order to generate a layered flow, where the layered flow is formed such that a polymer liquid sheet is sheathed on opposing sides by flow-confining liquid sheets. The fluidic device includes first and second fluid conduits, where the first fluid conduit receives the layered flow. The second fluid conduit has a reduced height relative to the first fluid conduit, such that the layered flow is constricted as it flows through the second fluid conduit. The constriction formed by the second flow conduit causes hydrodynamic focusing, reducing the thickness of the polymer liquid sheet, and inducing molecular alignment and anisotropy within the polymer liquid sheet as it is hardened and as strain is applied during extrusion of the sheet.

A method of manufacturing a foam having a Poisson's ratio which varies across at least a region of the foam in a gradient distribution involves the steps of: a) providing a housing defining an internal space having an inlet aperture and an outlet aperture; b) providing an open-cell foam of a size and shape configured to fit inside the internal space of the housing; c) positioning the foam inside the internal space of the housing; d) establishing a flow of air through the foam via the inlet and outlet apertures; e) heating the foam to a predetermined temperature while maintaining the flow of air through the foam; and f) subsequently cooling the foam while continuing to maintain the flow of air through the foam. A foam of such a type is also presented.

A disclosed method for producing an elongated filler-containing fluororesin sheet includes: a step (I) of forming a strip member from a strip sheet containing a fluororesin, a filler, and a forming aid; and a step (II) of forming an elongated sheet strip by rolling the strip member in a longitudinal direction of the strip member. In the step (I), the strip member is formed by bending the strip sheet in such a manner that quadrilaterals formed on a surface of the strip member, each defined by two strip member side edges extending in the longitudinal direction of the strip member and two strip sheet side edges of the strip sheet that crosses a region between the two strip member side edges are parallelograms each having an acute angle as an interior angle and that the parallelograms are arranged in the longitudinal direction of the strip member.

A housing assembly for an electronic circuit including an electronic control unit (ECU) is a low-profile, generally rectangular device that includes a base, a cover that closes an open end of the base, and a printed circuit board (PCB). The housing assembly securely supports the PCB and its associated electronic components while providing improved cooling properties and lower manufacturing costs. This is achieved by providing passive cooling features on an outer surface of the cover, and by employing a thermally conductive plastic to form the passive cooling features, where the cover has predetermined and defined anisotropic thermal conduction properties configured to optimize thermal conduction and cooling of the ECU.

A heat-conductive sheet comprising: a matrix formed of polyorganosiloxane; a material to increase hardness in low temperatures, the material having at least either one of an alkyl group having 10 or more carbon atoms and a dimethylsiloxane structure and also having a melting point of 60 C. to 23 C., thereby increasing a type OO hardness of the heat-conductive sheet, as specified in ASTM D2240, in a case where the heat-conductive sheet is cooled from room temperature to a temperature lower than room temperature; and a heat-conductive filler, the heat-conductive sheet having a type OO hardness of 50 or less at 25 C.

Examples provide computer-implemented methods for forming a fiber-reinforced composite device comprising fiber-comprising tows. Methods include forming a first preform model having one or more anisotropic tow layup portions comprising fiber-comprising tows; receiving one or more mold geometrical components; receiving one or more molding force vector parameters; forming a n intermediate device model by deforming the first preform model against the mold geometrical components using the molding force vector parameters; and forming a second preform model. Forming the second preform model includes adjusting the first preform model by forming a tow layup adjustment vector comprising one or more vectors extending from one or more tow of the fist preform model to one of more tow of the second preform model as a function of one or more position transformation vectors extending from one or more tow of the first preform model to one or more tow of the intermediate device model.

A method of manufacturing a heart valve comprises: a step of injection moulding a first part of the heart valve from a first block-copolymer, wherein the injection moulding is performed at a temperature below an order-disorder transition temperature of the block copolymer, such that a phase structure is present in the molten block-copolymer; a step of injection moulding a second part of the heart valve from a second block-copolymer that is different to the first block-copolymer, by over-moulding over the first part to form an over-moulded structure, wherein the injection moulding is performed at a temperature below order-disorder transition temperatures for the first and second block copolymers, such that a phase structure is present in the molten second block-copolymer and remains present in the first block-copolymer; and a step of cooling the over-moulded structure, without heating it above the order-disorder transition temperatures between the step of injection moulding the second part and the step of cooling, so as to preserve an arrangement of the phase structures created during the steps of injection moulding and produce anisotropic physical properties in the second part.

A structure for use in a compressible resilient pad. The structure contains both axially elastomeric strands and relatively inelastic strands co-extruded in various patterns. The structure has a high degree of both compressibility under an applied normal load and excellent recovery (resiliency or spring back) upon removal of that load.

The invention provides a method for generation of an orientation pattern in a photo-alignable material using parallax optic. The invention further provides optical devices comprising a parallax optical element and an element with patterned optical anisotropic properties. Such devices have angular dependent, optically anisotropic properties, which are useful for various applications.