Emergent metamaterials for cactus spider silk hydrogels for next generation multifunctional and sustainable energy absorption solids
Abstract
Twenty-first century armies are targeting a significant reduction in their carbonfootprint in the battlefield and general combat-related environments, but without a lossin performance. Moreover, increased access to in-situ materials in differentoperational theatres has critical implications on the logistics of maintaining a local ondemandmanufacturing/repairing capability. Sustainable high-performance materialsare also now in demand to meet current and future CO2 and NOX reduction targetsset in IATA 2025 and FlightPath 2050. Accordingly, this proposal describes thedevelopment of emergent classes of multifunctional metamaterials based onsynergistic integration of recently discovered fractal cactus fibres, bio-basedhydrogels, artificial spider silk and hard silica micro/nanoparticles. These novelmetamaterials will exhibit large damping factors for vibration loads (target 0.5-0.7,60%-100% higher than current elastomers) and controllable shape and stiffnesschange characteristics. Moreover, these properties will be coupled with externalmoisture/environmental conditions for sensing and actuation, and the novel bio-basedhydrogel architectures will be optimized for blast-mitigation properties. Significantly,these metamaterials will be manufactured using only sustainable bio-derivedcomponents. The long terms objective of this initiative is to identify the designparameters of these metamaterials to include other natural fibres with similarmechanical characteristics to those of the cactus reinforcement, but that are availablein a wide variety of operational theatres.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 31, 2020
- Source ID
- N629092012061
Entities
People
- Fabrizio Scarpa
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Bristol