Autonomous self-healing structural composites with bio-inspired design

Autonomous self-healing structural composites with bio-inspired design.

Strong and tough natural composites such as bone, silk or nacre are often built from stiff blocks bound together using thin interfacial soft layers that can also provide sacrificial bonds for self-repair. Here we show that it is possible exploit this design in order to create self-healing structural composites by using thin supramolecular polymer interfaces between ceramic blocks. We have built...

Bio-inspired self-healing structural color hydrogel.

Biologically inspired self-healing structural color hydrogels were developed by adding a glucose oxidase (GOX)- and catalase (CAT)-filled glutaraldehyde cross-linked BSA hydrogel into methacrylated gelatin (GelMA) inverse opal scaffolds. The composite hydrogel materials with the polymerized GelMA scaffold could maintain the stability of an inverse opal structure and its resultant structural col...

Bio-inspired Ceramic/carbon Composites

Bio-inspired impact-resistant composites.

Through evolutionary processes, biological composites have been optimized to fulfil specific functions. This optimization is exemplified in the mineralized dactyl club of the smashing predator stomatopod (specifically, Odontodactylus scyllarus). This crustacean's club has been designed to withstand the thousands of high-velocity blows that it delivers to its prey. The endocuticle of this multir...

Biology-inspired self-healing system design

When engineering self-healing systems, inspiration can be sought from nature. Biological organisms present proven self-healing models that have been developed during millions of years of evolution. In this paper common self-healing properties found in nature are described. A programming paradigm inspired by properties of the biological cell is discussed, and a software architecture for distribu...