Cholla cactus frames as lightweight and torsionally tough biological materials

Sustainable temporary shelter design via lightweight and recyclable materials

Background & Objects: Many goals can be imagined for this project, but achieving all these goals is a long and time-consuming task, and it is not possible to achieve all of them in one project, but in general, the main goal of the project is to find a plan that is suitable for temporary housing. can have the most efficiency for the accident victims while causing the least damage to the environm...

Tough, bio-inspired hybrid materials.

The notion of mimicking natural structures in the synthesis of new structural materials has generated enormous interest but has yielded few practical advances. Natural composites achieve strength and toughness through complex hierarchical designs that are extremely difficult to replicate synthetically. We emulate nature's toughening mechanisms by combining two ordinary compounds, aluminum oxide...

Engineering Tough Materials: Biomimetic Eggshell

This final report summarizes the work completed on the two year pilot project, which concluded 31 July 2016. The first section summarizes the two previous reports to place the current work in context. Two new research results sections are included here. The first concerns the use of a synthetic peptide, mimicking natural eggshell protein believed to be influential in biomineralization, to exami...

14 Lightweight Plastic Materials

Beneficial Reuse of Locally-available Waste Materials as Lightweight Aggregate in Lightweight Concrete