The goal of this 4-year project is to understand the design and engineering of structural materials and surfaces that can be adaptive to their operating environment and conditions. To reach this goal, inspiration will be taken from natural structures and materials to design next-generation biomimetic structural materials, capable of structural switching. The validation focus of the research will be towards elastomer-based composites.

The Challenge

Next generation structural materials whose local properties can be tailored and tuned to be adaptive to the loads and environments in which they are operating offers exciting prospects in a wide range of applications. The challenge to realizing these materials lies in taking a science-based approach to understand the fundamentals behind how new levels of material performance can be achieved.

The fabrication of biomimetic materials is commonly realized through imitating structures, interfaces, and synthesis processes of natural materials. The current research will go beyond copying, to learn and adapt the design principles found in nature through multiscale computational analysis and data analytics and using this as an inspiration for the development of next generation structural materials.

First, relevant literature will be explored to define possible structural systems. This will be achieved using data analytics to unravel the complex solutions found in nature. The information will then be used to design polymer-based composite material systems through multi-scale modelling. The active function of the new materials will be achieved through appropriate material additions. To validate the findings, new structures will be fabricated during the research. Processing routes to fabricate these structures will be explored on a lab-scale.