This bi-weekly chalk & talk series, brought to you by the FLAMEL Traineeship Program, focuses on topics in the areas of data and materials. The series will begin with talks by faculty who are supervising FLAMEL students, and will then progress to talks by the FLAMEL students as they present on their projects. 

Lunch and drinks provided courtesy of the Institute for Materials (IMAT).

Abstract

By virtue of natural selection through competition for limited resources, biological structures require an extreme economy of materials while still providing a robust tolerance to the defects that develop as a matter of course through growth and maturation. Evolutionary refinement has produced myriad structures with properties superior to those of manmade materials, properties contingent upon complex interactions between different levels of structural hierarchy. Through the application of natural design principles and versatile, growth-like additive manufacturing techniques such as 3D printing, we are poised to reimagine the standards of materials research and sustainable manufacturing. While nature provides a wealth of design opportunity, the sheer volume of possibilities presents an imposing hurdle; the need for efficient methods of down-selection is clear. Currently, finding an appropriate natural hierarchy requires extensive literature review and analysis; for bio-inspired design to become more amenable to engineers in general, there needs to be a better interface for structural investigations. We endeavored to develop a general approach to bio-inspired materials design research, and, moreover, to develop the groundwork for a database that would facilitate such research. The objective of this talk is to present the proposed data structure for the storage and comparison of hierarchical structures, and discuss computational approaches that can simplify the process of choosing appropriate structures for focused investigation.

Bio

Jeannette Yen is the director of Georgia Tech’s Center for Biologically Inspired Design (CBID). The goal of CBID is to facilitate, develop infrastructure for, and promote interdisciplinary research and education. Science and technology are increasingly hitting the limits of approaches based on traditional disciplines, and Biology may serve as an untapped resource for design methodology, with concept-testing having occurred over millions of years of evolution. Experiencing the benefits of Nature as a source of innovative and inspiring principles encourages us to preserve and protect the natural world rather than simply to harvest its products.

Jeannette Yen’s Ph.D. is in biological oceanography where she studies how fluid mechanical and chemical cues transported at low Re flow serve as communication channels for aquatic organisms, primarily plankton: the base of aquatic food webs.