Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Making Nano Big

Markus J. Buehler

Professor and Head

        Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

Thursday, September 25th, 2014

12pm-1pm

458 Richards Hall

Abstract

What if we could design materials that integrate powerful concepts of living organisms – self-organization, the ability to self-heal, and an amazing flexibility to create astounding material properties from abundant and inexpensive raw materials?  This talk will present a comprehensive review of bottom-up analysis and design of materials for various purposes – as structural materials such as bone in our body or for lightweight composites, for applications as coatings, and as multifunctional sensors to measure small changes in temperature or stress.  These new materials are designed from the bottom up and through a close coupling of experiment and powerful computation as we assemble structures, atom by atom.  Materiomics investigates the material properties of natural and synthetic materials by examining fundamental links between processes, structures and properties at multiple scales, from nano to macro, by using systematic experimental, theoretical or computational methods.  We review case studies of joint experimental-computational work of biomimetic materials design, manufacturing and testing for the development of strong, tough and mutable materials for applications as protective coatings, cables and structural materials. We outline challenges and opportunities for technological innovation for biomaterials and beyond, exploiting novel concepts of mathematics based on category theory, which leads to a new way to organize hierarchical structure-property information.  Altogether, the use of a new paradigm to design materials from the bottom up plays a critical role in advanced manufacturing, providing flexibility, tailorability and efficiency.