Swapnil Kumar

MCEN 5228: Biomimetic Biomaterials

Synthesis paper 1
Structures and Hierarchy in Biological material design
Biological materials are the ultimate products of engineering that nature
performs. They are so brilliantly designed that properties exemplified by
some of them stand unparalleled by anything designed by humans. These
biomaterials found in nature have evolved through billions of years to
develop into highly optimized materials which have combinations of low
density (lightweight), high strength, high stiffness and toughness. The
synthetic materials humans design generally displays selective desirable
properties and is a tradeoff between one property or the other. A lot of times
the tradeoff is between toughness and strength.
Although most natural materials are composites, they are made of very few
resources available in the environment at ambient temperatures. In addition,
something peculiar in natural materials is that, the desirable properties of
the natural materials are significantly better than the independent properties
of its components. For example, Nacre is mainly composed of Nacre protein
(extremely low in strength as well as toughness) and Aragonite (also having
low fracture toughness), but nacre has high strength as well as toughness.
The authors of both reference papers [1,2], have tried to look into the
different design motifs of biomaterials and address how man can use it in
designing new synthetic materials with desirable properties without having
to trade off other properties.
Ulrike, et. al reviewed several biomaterials and observed common design
characteristics which explain their highly exceptional properties. Firstly,
biomaterials use different structures and structural orientations across a
range of scales from nano-scale to macro-scale (called the mesoscale) which
is called a structural hierarchy [1]. Secondly, these biomaterials have a
combination of hard and soft phases in suitable arrangements to augment
certain properties. For example, the brick-and-mortar arrangement in nacre
help arrest crack propagation to avoid failure. Whereas man-made materials
generally have uniform structures and are designed to resist fracture or
catastrophic failure by giving them certain mechanical properties.
Biomaterials are formed by a bottom-up approach and are hard to
manufacture on a large scale. Also, natural materials properties like self-
healing, self-repair and adaptation to changes in mechanical usage patterns
pose a huge challenge for researchers to design biomimetic materials. The
papers address a few of these fundamental questions: How are natural
materials able to achieve this?
The authors extract the key design motifs of natural materials. The author of
paper bioinspired structural material points out 3 critical factors for
designing new materials: 1. Chemical composition, 2. Nano/micro structure
and 3. Architecture. Studying about how nature works on these is one
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approach material scientists can follow. Also, to mimic the design strategies,
first principles calculations could be used in which the atomic components
are understood and diverse functional requirements of the components are
grasped. Following these two strategies, the authors extract some key design
motifs of natural materials. A few of illustrations are: Having architectural
control over and templating nucleation and growth as in mineralized
structures where minerals are combined with nano- scale ceramic phase in
the form of grains, platelets, fibres which help in increasing strength and flaw
tolerance. Also, biomaterials have a soft phase, which during fracture acts as
toughening mechanism. This gives the materials both high strength and
toughness. Another example is interface design. Man-made interfaces are
intended to enhance adhesion, provide stability and prevent wear, etc.
whereas biomaterials perform multiple functions. Natural materials at
microscopic level are usually complex and anisotropic. A noteworthy
technique used by nature is exemplified in biomaterials like bamboo, bone,
etc. which have a graded architecture. This is used as an optimization
technique that can be taken inspiration from. Materials with a density
gradient according to the desired properties in a coherent manner, that is,
without using assemblies or separate structures is extremely challenging.
Grossman, et. al use biomimicry with different manufacturing techniques to
form Nacre-like composites and have been successful to manufacture
materials which had unusually high performance. They utilized the Nacres
structural architecture, which is a brick-and-mortar type by structurally
controlling and orienting mineral platelets and developing nano-asperities
between them; Also modulating inter-connectivity between the platelets and
mimicking the strain hardening organic matrix of Nacre over several
experiments and iterations. Two extremely useful toughening mechanisms:
Crack bridging and crack deflection were studied in the materials and can be
used in designing other composites. Humans have tried to replicate designs
but mostly have been unsuccessful in doing so at a large scale. This is one of
the biggest challenge being faced.
Biological form/ function /shape
Structural hierarchy in biological material design natural materials exemplify
both form and function. Hierarchical architectures at various scales perform
various functions, varying from providing strength, toughness, stiffness,
shock absorption, stress distribution to transporting nutrients and water and
to making the structure lightweight. These elements on a mesoscale
combine to define a particular form at macro- scale. The natural forms are
extremely optimized. The materials on a macro-scale perform various
functions as well such as providing safety, distributing stresses, or to provide
aerodynamic or hydrophobic structures. It is evident, if synthetic materials
are made to perform multiple functions at different scales, the possibilities
would be vast. Although the authors do question whether the materials need
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to be designed to be highly specific to perform a certain function or could be

used in several applications and believe it also depends on economic factors.
Biomimetic applications
Several Innovations and advanced technologies have been developed by
researchers and engineers using biomimetic design in recent years.
Researchers at MIT material ecology group are designing new materials
using computation techniques and additive manufacturing technologies to
integrate hierarchical architectural in materials [3, 4]. Also, Mercedes Benz
research group and Daimler Chrysler researchers designed a bionoic car
inspired from box-fishs armor plating and bone structures of various
creatures, developed an optimization software called Soft Kill Option (SKO)
that follows biological growth laws for high strength and minimum material
usage. They were able to improve the rigidity by 40 percent and weight
reduced by 30 percent [5]. Researchers are developing self-healing
membranes, shape programmable active matter using polymers and
hydrogels which mimic human muscles and plant tissues [6].
Novel or creative applications
Materials which are multifunctional can be developed which are scalable and
additive manufacturing techniques mimicking growth principles can be used,
also utilizing digital fabrication effectively can provide great breaks in
overcoming various challenges. By integrating digital fabrication, machine
learning and biomimetic design, we can build highly optimized structures/
materials with structural hierarchy, that is, printing macro scale structures
using structurally architecture microscale material instead of isotropic
materials. With digital fabrication, we could also give gradients like in
bamboo and bones.
Gaps or questions
Effective development of structural architecture for large scale fabrication
requires structural control and complex working methods. Achieving this is
on a mass scale and designing such materials are . Materials which can self-
repair or are self-healing are also complicated to design. There is a huge gap
in our ability to achieve structural control, also growing materials while
defining a structural orientation/architecture is where I believe we need to
focus on rather than using energy intensive processes to build. Finally,
another huge opportunity for researchers lies in designing materials that can
adapt themselves to change its properties according to usage which natural
materials do very gracefully.
References:
[1] Wegst, Ulrike GK, et al. "Bioinspired structural materials." Nature
materials 14.1 (2015): 23-36.
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[2] Grossman, Madeleine, et al. "Mineral NanoInterconnectivity Stiffens and

Toughens Nacrelike Composite Materials." Advanced Materials (2016).

[3] Bader, C., Patrick, W., Kolb, D., Hays, S., Keating, S., Sharma, S., Dikovsky,
D., Belocon, B., Weaver, J., Silver, P., and Oxman, N., 3D PRINTING AND
ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING, Volume 3, Number 2, 2016, 79-89

[4] Duro-Royo, Jorge, et al. "MetaMesh: A hierarchical computational model

for design and fabrication of biomimetic armored surfaces." Computer-Aided
Design 60 (2015): 14-27.

[5] Rampf, Markus, et al. "Self-repairing membranes for inflatable structures

inspired by a rapid wound sealing process of climbing plants." Journal of
Bionic Engineering 8.3 (2011): 242-250.

[6] Nature shows the way, news release from EMPA's Center for Synergetic
Structures, September 23, 2011,
http://www.empa.ch/plugin/template/empa/3/112203/---/l=2