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Toughening Mechanisms in Natural Materials and Bioinspired Designs

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Mechanics of Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 February 2023) | Viewed by 2558

Special Issue Editors

Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Shenyang, China
Interests: bioinspired materials; fracture toughness; mechanical properties; biomechanics
Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Interests: gradient/heterogeneous materials; metallic biomaterials; bioinspired metals/composites; mechanical properties; fracture and fatigue

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Natural biological materials have developed delicate structures and extraordinary properties that serve as boundless inspiration for the design of advanced materials with high-performance properties and versatile functions. In recent decades, rapidly growing efforts have been made into the research fields of bioinspired materials, which drives disruptive technological advances. Examples of bioinspired materials are water collecting surfaces inspired by the head-stander beetle, light-harvesting photonic materials that mimic photosynthesis, camera lenses inspired by compound eyes of insects, and hybrid structures that mimic the hierarchical architectures of nacre, antler, or bone.

This Special Issue aims to understand the structure–property–function relationships and toughening mechanisms of natural materials, based on which we explore the innovative design and synthesis of bioinspired structures and materials. Emphasis is placed on the design of lightweight, high-strength, and tough biomimetic materials. Distinct from traditional engineering materials, where achieving the two mutually exclusive properties of strength and toughness presents a significant challenge, a number of biological materials are exquisitely designed to exhibit high toughness while maintaining sufficient strength. Articles, reviews, and communications related to the design, synthesis, characterization, and modeling of bioinspired structures, biomimetic architected materials, and hierarchical structures for the purpose of enhancing mechanical properties, in particular the toughness and damage tolerance, are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Zengqian Liu
Dr. Qin Yu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • biomimetic
  • bioinspired materials
  • bioinspired designs
  • toughening mechanisms
  • structure–property relationships
  • architectures

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

8 pages, 3424 KiB  
Article
Study on the Fracture Toughness of Softwood and Hardwood Estimated by Boundary Effect Model
by Hong-Mei Ji, Xiao-Na Liu and Xiao-Wu Li
Materials 2022, 15(11), 4039; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma15114039 - 06 Jun 2022
Viewed by 1573
Abstract
The tensile strength and fracture toughness of softwood and hardwood are measured by the Boundary Effect Model (BEM). The experimental results of single-edge notched three-point bending tests indicate that the BEM is an appropriate method to estimate the fracture toughness of the present [...] Read more.
The tensile strength and fracture toughness of softwood and hardwood are measured by the Boundary Effect Model (BEM). The experimental results of single-edge notched three-point bending tests indicate that the BEM is an appropriate method to estimate the fracture toughness of the present fibrous and porous woods. In softwood with alternating earlywood and latewood layers, the variation in the volume percentage of different layers in a small range has no obvious influence on the mechanical properties of the materials. In contrast, the hardwood presents much higher tensile strength and fracture toughness simultaneously due to its complicated structure with crossed arrangement of the fibers and rays and big vessels diffused in the fibers. The present research findings are expected to provide a fundamental insight into the design of high-performance bionic materials with a highly fibrous and porous structure. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Toughening Mechanisms in Natural Materials and Bioinspired Designs)
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