Intersections and Design with Natural Materials

Most natural materials are multifunctional composites with complex hierarchical structures, typically built from simple, yet efficient constituent nanoscale biopolymers and biominerals. While we have used biomaterials like wood, flax and silk for diverse applications since pre-historic times, their potential has not been fully-exploited yet. Natural materials are of increasing interest to today’s material world not only for direct usage (to alleviate some of the environmental issues associated with using man-made materials), but also for bioinspiration (to make novel and more efficient man-made materials). At the Centre for Natural Material Innovation, we try to improve performance and functionality in natural materials, and use design to propose them as sustainable alternatives to conventional anthropogenic materials (mainly concrete, steel and plastics) in structural applications. This talk will showcase some of our across-the-length scales, across-supply-chains, interdisciplinary natural materials and design research.

The talk will first explore some of the lessons we have learnt through function-structure-property-processing relations in some of nature's marvellous materials and structures, such as: the non-woven silk cocoons of Bombyx Mori silkworms, the highly-oriented filamentous nanocomposite tubes of the Chaetopterus sp. marine worm, the dentinous ivory of elephants, and the polylaminate structure of bamboo and flax cell walls.

The talk will then explore the significant opportunities presented by wood and bamboo, and flax and hemp in a large variety of structural applications, from precision-engineered school buildings as carbon-sinks and hemp-insulated retrofit building strategies, to flax biocomposite flying boats and wind turbine blades and bamboo cricket bats. The role of design and policy in increasing uptake of natural materials will be covered.