Tough bone-inspired composites
Project description
The outstanding properties of biological materials make them attractive as models and inspiration for engineering materials. The main goal of the project is to integrate computer simulations, 3D multimaterial printing and mechanical testing into a research platform to explore the mechanical efficiency of bone-inspired architectured materials. By extracting and characterizing bioinspired design principles such as tunable mechanical gradients and helicoidal fiber arrangements, detailed general design guidelines should be provided to, increase failure resistance of additive manufactured heterogeneous materials. The results shall also guide the development of next-generation bioinspired architectured materials which are flawtolerant and which can have a fully programmable failure behavior.
The bone-inspired architectured materials will be investigated with increasing complexity in a step-wise approach. Starting from 2D systems, the protective role of an interlayer between inclusion and matrix will be first characterized, inspired by the cement line in osteonal bone. Two opposite scenarios for the inclusion will be considered: an extremely stiff ceramic disk and an “infinitely” soft void. The first setting exemplifies conventional ceramic-reinforced epoxy matrix composites, whereas the second one describes the inner porous network often present in biological materials. Next, the complexity will be increased by introducing different mechanical gradients in the matrix surrounding the inclusion. The ability of the gradients to manipulate strain concentration around the inclusion will be described as well as the corresponding role on crack paths and failure mechanisms. In the last stage, fully 3D helix-reinforced composites will be considered, mimicking some aspects of the complex hierarchical architecture of osteonal bone. We will characterize how, by modulating fiber arrangement in different layers, we can program cracking behavior, resulting in toughness enhancement.
Contacts
✏️ Tim Volders
