High Resolution Multi-Material Additive Manufacturing: 3D Fabrication of Biologically Inspired Structures

Speaker: Dr. James C. Weaver, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, and Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University

Abstract: Nature produces a remarkable diversity of intricately architectured mineralized composites that in many instances far exceeds the performance of their modern engineering analogs. Despite significant investigations into structure-function relationships in these complex biological materials, in many instances, there is a lack of critical information regarding the specific functional roles of many components of these structural hierarchies. Here we introduce the technique of multi-material additive manufacturing, which we employ as a research tool to unravel the functional complexities of a wide range of biological materials including laminated composites, photonic architectures, and low drag surface coatings.

More information here.