Inspiration from Nature—Biomimetic Materials Workshop at the San Diego Zoo

Abstract

The Biomimetic Materials Workshop, a continuing education program during TMS 2011 Annual Meeting, was held in the world famous San Diego Zoo on Sunday, February 27. This one-day workshop organized by the Biological Materials Science Committee in collaboration with the Zoological Society of San Diego attracted a multidisciplinary group of over 30 participants. Despite the record-setting low temperature and storm the day before, San Diego sunshine welcomed participants on Sunday morning. After arriving at Rondavel Hall in the zoo and breakfast, Po-Yu Chen, the workshop organizer from The University of California at San Diego (UCSD), made brief welcoming remarks. The first speaker was Dena Emmerson, the representative of the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. She introduced the zoo’s Biomimicry Program, which offers unparalleled facilities in this growing field with 4,000 animals and 40,000 plant species. The Biomimicry Program has organized two annual conferences, monthly seminars, and workshops with companies such as Qualcomm, Nike, and P&G in an interactive and multisensory approach. The goal is to share the resources with local, national, and global communities to boost biomimicry, transforming San Diego as the hub for sustainable, nature-inspired innovations and ultimately benefit environmental conservation. Marc A. Meyers, a professor from UCSD, gave an overview on “Biological Materials—A Materials Science Approach.” He elucidated characteristic principles used in nature, namely hierarchical structure, multi-functionality, self-assembly under environmental conditions using basic building blocks. He gave several examples of structural biological materials, such as abalone shell, crab exoskeleton, Amazon fish scale, toucan beak, and natural adhesives (gecko, tree frog, abalone foot, etc.). Joanna McKittrck, also a professor from UCSD, presented “Taking Knowledge of Biological Materials to the Next Step,” bridging natural/ biological materials and bioinspired design and synthesis. Several impactresistant materials in nature were presented—such as antler, horn, armadillo and crocodile osteoderms, turtle shell—and followed by bio-inspired materials from ancient armors to novel self-healing composites. During the break, Kim, an educator from the zoo, brought in a South American three-banded armadillo, which has a unique armor made of bony plates, called osteoderms, and can roll into a ball to protect itself from predators. The osteoderms have sandwich architecture with porous neurovascular channels in the center and are connected by non-mineralized collagen fibrils. These microstructural features make the armor lightweight and flexible. The attendees were able to closely observe and touch the interesting creature and many of them even took pictures with “Armando” the armadillo (see Figure 1). Robert O. Ritchie, a professor with UC Berkeley, delivered a talk on “Bioinspired Tough Ceramics.” He first explained the mechanistic origins of toughness in natural ceramic-based composite (i.e., bone and abalone naFigure 1. Animal demonstration of the three banded armadillo showing (a) the protective posture, (b) photo shoot and tactile tour of the armor, and (c) microstructural features of armadillo armor. a b