Using Bio-Inspired Material Crosslink Dynamics to Engineer Energy-Dissipative Polymer Mechanics
Abstract
Thanks to hundreds of millions of years of biological material evolution, nature today presents us with macromolecules that under ambient pressure and temperature can self-assemble into materials with extraordinary properties such as high energy impact dissipation and post-failure self-healing. In contrast, man-made organic materials are typically mechanically irreversible and therefore post-failure inoperable. My overall career goal is to distill new material design strategies from biological material adaptation and use them to broadly expand the properties of synthetic materials. Here I propose to utilize an early outcome of these efforts. Through studies of dynamically bonded macromolecular materials in nature I have found that metal-coordination bonds display ideal multi-functional properties for stimuli-responsive materials design: a broad range of physico-chemical triggers and unique opportunities for responsive feedback. No other dynamic bonds than metal-coordinate bonds have been demonstrated to possess chemically, optically and mechanically tunable properties yet these combined coupling mechanisms remain largely unexplored in bio-inspired materials engineering. I propose to perform an integrated study of the multi-stimuli-responsive properties of metal-coordinated polymer materials and to apply the lessons learned in the design of new polymer materials for energy-dissipation sensing and control.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2016
- Source ID
- N000141512763
Entities
People
- Niels Hotlen-andersen
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy