Chapter 6 - Biomimicry for natural and synthetic composites and use of machine learning in hierarchical design

Abstract

Humankind has long studied natural systems to understand their complexity and to find motivation and inspiration for improving knowledge and design capabilities for a number of varied applications. These concepts are summarized in a term that has been used as the main keyword in many important research areas: biomimicry. Among all research fields, materials science has been, perhaps, the most influenced by nature. This chapter delivers the basic concepts of hierarchical structures and their universal/diverse features in order to present the most influential natural materials and compounds and their employment in synthetic made-up composites for tissue engineering and industrial applications. Later, we also show how artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms have contributed to improve the characterization and design of natural and bio-inspired materials, optimizing the computational tools and overcoming the limitations of traditional approaches. We conclude with a deliberation to discuss future opportunities in the field.