Welcome Back!!
Project experimentation group interest, updates, + more
Hi all! Hope everyone has had a restful winter break! We loved seeing everyone at club fair and are so excited for a new semester! BRIC is back this semester with some updates and new opportunities!
As we’re building back our full range of events from before COVID, we’ve been asking ourselves the question: how can we open up the learning and the teaching of biomaterials? How can we deepen our exploration into the full-cycle use of biomaterials and take advantage of their biodegradable and natural properties? How can we expand our play beyond our workshops?
And we’ve found—- the answer doesn’t come from us, it comes from you! This semester (and beyond), we’d like to create a biomaterials experimentation group where you have the opportunity to work with a group to create, experiment with, and test biomaterials. A project group might involve working on a design challenge, creating and experimenting with biomaterial recipes, and looking around you to get inspired! The possibilities are wide, so we would like to get feedback from you to figure out what skills or experiences you would be interested in gaining. The form attached (is completely non-binding) and has more info!
(https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJJ53AQqM4OkqNZIFRr99xEBzKxAWE2Z3CmGV1RdYca4X5uA/viewform?usp=header)
As usual, we’ll have workshop and lecture events, so stay posted for more!
If you’re interested in some additional reading about integrating interdisciplinary approaches to design and manufacture multidimensional material properties, check the next section out!
As the need for materials with difficult to combine properties, in applications of health, water, and energy among other fields, drives advancements in the field of bioinspired and biomimetic nanostructures, Yang and Kotov discuss the mediation of a framework, either mathematical or physics-based, to model these biomimetic nanomaterials (2024). Natural materials blend contrary properties in mind-bending ways. Research in bioinspired nanomaterials confronts challenges in the design of these contrary physical properties. For example, in applications where a material must be stiff, it may not be light, which defines the difficulty for engineering of load-bearing materials. Moreover, the conflict between high electric conductivity and low thermal conductivity defines the challenge for materials with thermoelectric applications.
Yang and Kotov propose a Taylor series that provides a unified mathematical framework for biomimetic nanomaterials. With a tool to encapsulate dependence for specific materials characteristics of complex composites, they hold confidence in the eventual translation of computational design into practical implementation. Nanomaterials are characteristically self assembling (and thus don’t require as much energy in manufacturing) and high-performing, and their development holds potential for addressing our pressing sustainability challenges.
In another approach, researchers at the University of Stuttgart and the Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems approach the challenge of materials with gradually changing and tunable physical properties with the integration of additive manufacturing, colloquially 3D-printing, with digital design (2020).
Functionally graded materials (FGM) are materials with a gradual change in composition or structure, giving rise to a corresponding change in property of the materials. Imagine the beaks of squids, which are more stiff at the tip than at the base, allowing for the chitin structure to blend into their soft bodies. In engineering, advancements in manufacturing functionally graded materials are sought after because of FGM’s ability to fulfill multiple design requirements. In fact, they are used in applications in thin films, coatings, biomedical engineering, and architecture.
A typical class of FGM are materials with stiffness gradients– i.e. materials that will resist deformation (bending, stretching, compressing) to different engineered degrees. Traditionally, they are manufactured using constructive processes (i.e. layering of materials) or mass transport (i.e. diffusion). However, multimaterial additive manufacturing provides an alternative and more tunable method of production– with tradeoffs in complexity, printing resolution, scalability, and material types.
Giachini et al. show a FGM manufacturing method that combines engineering and digital processing (integration of gradient information and Grasshopper within Rhinoceres 3D) and uses both constructive and mass transport processes to create continuous stiffness gradients (2020). Here, the researchers create a setup with a three-dimensional printer and syringe pumps filled with solutions of cellulose derivative. Varying parameters like the viscosity of the printing solution, deposition rate, and material mixing ratios, they achieve stiffness gradients with hydroxyethyl cellulose by several different methods. Ultimately, they prove the payoff of integrating physical and digital tools to open design possibilities previously limited by the rigid coupling of material and geometry and extend flexibility in a scalable and adaptable process.
Giachini, P. A. G. S., Gupta, S. S., Wang, W., Wood, D., Yunusa, M., Baharlou, E., Sitti, M., & Menges, A. (2020). Additive manufacturing of cellulose-based materials with continuous, multidirectional stiffness gradients. Science Advances, 6(8). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aay0929
Yang, M., & Kotov, N. A. (2024). Quantitative biomimetics of high-performance materials. Nature Reviews Materials. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-024-00753-3
Thanks for reading, and hope to see you soon!
Additional Links & Resources