Search

The rational design of desirable lightweight structural materials usually needs to meet the strict requirements of mechanical properties. Seeking optimal integration strategies for lightweight structures and high mechanical performance is always of great research significance in the rapidly developing composites field, which also draws significant attention from materials scientists and engineers. However, the intrinsic incompatibility of low mass and high strength is still an open challenge for achieving satisfied engineering composites. Fortunately, creatures in nature tend to possess excellent lightweight properties and mechanical performance to improve their survival ability. Thus, by ingenious structure configuration, lightweight structural biomaterials with simple components can achieve high mechanical performance. This review comprehensively summarizes recent advances in three typical structures in natural biomaterials: cellular structures, fibrous structures, and sandwich structures. For each structure, typical organisms are selected for comparison, and their compositions, structures, and properties are discussed in detail, respectively. In addition, bioinspired design approaches of each structure are briefly introduced. At last, the outlook on the design and fabrication of bioinspired composites is also presented to guide the development of advanced composites in future practical engineering applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high‐performance optimized design of industrial sensor has been a challenging point of breakthrough in high‐end equipment manufacturing technology since its invention. Highly sensitive detectors have emerged during a long evolutionary period and have shown to be essential tools for ensuring species survival and reproduction. As a result, bio‐sensors have served as a great source of inspiration for high‐sensitivity and high‐performance sensor. Mechanism of bio‐sensors in mechanical detection of three common arthropods, as well as the most recent research results in bio‐mimetic devices, have been discussed in this study. The structure of bio‐detectors and bio‐sensors has been creatively split into environmental information capture device and transduction unit from the standpoint of biological sensing mechanisms and engineering technology. And development of bio‐sensors will rely on design and exploitation of mechanical structures and functional materials with various couplings. Exploration of bionic mechanical sensors is in its early stages and further research is required. High‐performance research on biological detectors and multi‐level bionic design on industrial sensors have been enhanced by revealing mechanism of environmental information capture in environment capture device from basic science and synthesizing new multi‐functional materials of transduction unit with a combination of biological materials and production technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise in structural performance requirements in engineering is driving the research and development of stronger, stiffer, and lighter materials. However, most traditional artificial materials are unable to meet the needs of modern industrial and technological development. In fact, multifarious creatures in nature are further ahead in their use of structural materials. There is a fairly limited selection of natural structural materials at ambient temperatures. They usually consist of hard and soft phases arranged in a complex hierarchy with characteristic dimensions ranging from nanoscale to macroscale. The resulting materials usually show a nearly perfect combination of strength and toughness integrated with lightweight characteristics. This is exactly what is required of engineering materials. In this review, different biological materials were divided into the following types in terms of structural elements: 1D fibrous structures, 2D layered structures, 3D cellular structures and heterogeneous interface structures. For each structural element, corresponding structure components and mechanical properties of typical organisms were well described. Abundant sophisticated models of natural biological structures were discussed contrastively. The purpose of this review was to summarize the excellent properties of multi-dimensional biological models with cross-scale features and to reveal the relationship between structure characteristics and function mechanism, which could provide valuable references for the design and optimization of a future biomimetic composite with high mechanical performance. This review is anticipated to not only inspire novel biomimetic design but also offer a window for the deep understanding of existing outstanding structural composites in diversified species, which could provide continuous innovative power for composite renovation in many engineering fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by the unique creatures in the nature, the femtosecond laser technology has been usually used to fabricate the periodic microstructures due to its advantages of rapidness, simplicity, ease of large-area fabrication, and simultaneously offering dual micro/nano-scale structures simply via one-step process for a wide variety of materials. By changing the experimental conditions, multi-functional surfaces which possess superhydrophobicity and structural colors could be achieved on copper substrate. In addition, the apparent contact angle can reach 144.3° without any further modification, which also exhibits the anisotropic wettability. Moreover, it can be inferred that higher laser fluence can lead to a larger CA within a certain range. At the same time, due to the change of laser processing parameters, the obtained surfaces present different structural colors. This study may expand the applications of bio-inspired functional materials because multiple colors and hydrophobicity are both important features in the real life and industrial applications, such as display, decoration, and anti-counterfeiting technology etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optical properties of iridescent nanostructures which were found in butterfly scales were investigated under varied temperature. An amazing hierarchical nanostructure with high thermal stability was revealed for the application of bio-inspired optical materials. Relationship between thermal dilation and light reflectance of the typical iridescent nanostructures including the ridge-specialized and body-lamellae structure were carefully studied by experimental tests and computer simulation. Results of experimental tests showed the light reflectance of the body-lamellae nanostructure performed more stable. Finite element methods and FDTD (Finite-Difference Time-Domain) solutions revealed the effect of thermal dilation and structural parameters on light reflectance. The results guided the design of future optical sensing materials with a high thermo-optic stable nanostructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]