A well a bit chaotic, as it happens. When researchers tested the strength of each lattice, the Bouligand type IV structure absorbed 20 times more energy than type I. “This type of microstructure ensures that this type of compound is very resilient,” says the engineer. University of Southern California, Qiming Wang. , co-author in a new article describing the results of the journal Advanced materials. “When you have a crack, that crack will propagate in the torsion pattern to dissipate energy within the material.” In fact, the material absorbs more energy than natural mother-of-pearl (mother-of-pearl), which gives some shells their strength, and also surpasses existing artificial materials, say Wang and colleagues.
Just as the mantis shrimp hammer absorbs the energy of its blows without breaking, so could the materials developed with this new method. For potential uses, Wang says to think about body armor, which must dissipate the energy of a bullet. Calcium carbonate is also quite light, so scientists could also grow harder panels for planes, or even skins for robots, Wang says.
“This is, for me, a way of doing manufacturing in the future, and I’m not the only one saying that,” says Purdue University civil engineer Pablo Zavattieri, who did not participate in this research. In traditional manufacturing, defects can creep in. Nature, on the other hand, has developed for millions of years the wonderful Bouligand structure in the mantis shrimp hammer, and is a pattern that can be replicated with a simple net and a bacterial bath. “Nature is, in this way, impeccable,” Zavattieri says. “Nature is a 3D printer.”
Another thing that makes this material built with bacteria special is its ability to regenerate. As if, instead of building roads, we it grew up they? “If we have damage, you just have to introduce bacteria inside and it can make them grow back,” Wang says. “These structures are very hard, very strong and potentially repairable.”
The researchers are not there yet: they managed to get the bacteria to grow minerals under controlled conditions in the laboratory, and even only in small quantities. Expanding road construction would entail additional engineering challenges; for example, obtaining the proper proportion of scaffolding support to hardening material. But Zavattieri is already working on concrete 3D printing. “I don’t think he’s super crazy,” he says. “We can have the robots print the classic scaffold, leave the bacteria there and let the material grow for 10 days.”
So maybe one day the brazen shrimp mantis could help fix the destroyed infrastructure of the United States, instead of breaking your thumbs.
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