Biological materials by design.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Biomimetics
• Computational Modeling

Background:

• Biological materials exhibit complex functionality through hierarchical structuring.
• Understanding the physics of biological material function is key to biomimicry.
• Traditional material design often starts from bulk properties, not fundamental building blocks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review recent advances in designing engineered materials inspired by biological systems.
• To highlight the integration of physical insight, computational multiscale methods, and experimental synthesis.
• To showcase how hierarchical structuring can lead to complex material functionality.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing physical insights from biological material function.
• Employing computational multiscale methods to link chemistry and material function.
• Integrating material synthesis, experimental testing, and computational modeling.
• Analyzing case studies of natural materials like wood and engineered composites.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated successful design of novel engineered materials from fundamental building blocks.
• Connected advances in multiscale hierarchical structuring with material synthesis and testing.
• Illustrated the design, modeling, synthesis, and experimental testing of engineered fiber composites and bulk materials.

Conclusions:

• The integration of experiment and simulation opens new avenues for exploring material physics.
• A new paradigm in material design achieves complex functionality through hierarchical structuring.
• Engineered materials can achieve sophisticated functions despite simple constituent materials by mimicking biological hierarchies.