Biomimetic Mechanical Robust Cement-Resin Composites with Machine Learning-Assisted Gradient Hierarchical Structures.

Biological materials relying on hierarchically ordered architectures inspire the emergence of advanced composites with mutually exclusive mechanical properties, but the efficient topology optimization and large-scale manufacturing remain challenging. Herein, this work proposes a scalable bottom-up approach to fabricate a novel nacre-like cement-resin composite with gradient brick-and-mortar (BM) structure, and demonstrates a machine learning-assisted method to optimize the gradient structure. The fabricated gradient composite exhibits an extraordinary combination of high flexural strength, toughness, and impact resistance. Particularly, the toughness and impact resistance of such composite attractively surpass the cement counterparts by factors of approximately 700 and 600 times, and even outperform natural rocks, fiber-reinforced cement-based materials and even some alloys. The strengthening and toughening mechanisms are clarified as the regional-matrix densifying and crack-tip shielding effects caused by the gradient BM structure. The developed gradient composite not only endows a promising structural material for protective applications in harsh scenarios, but also paves a new way for biomimetic metamaterials designing.

Fabrication of Living Entangled Network Composites Enabled by Mycelium.

Organic polymer-based composite materials with favorable mechanical performance and functionalities are keystones to various modern industries; however, the environmental pollution stemming from their processing poses a great challenge. In this study, by finding an autonomous phase separating ability of fungal mycelium, a new material fabrication approach is introduced that leverages such biological metabolism-driven, mycelial growth-induced phase separation to bypass high-energy cost and labor-intensive synthetic methods. The resulting self-regenerative composites, featuring an entangled network structure of mycelium and assembled organic polymers, exhibit remarkable self-healing properties, being capable of reversing complete separation and restoring ≈90% of the original strength. These composites further show exceptional mechanical strength, with a high specific strength of 8.15 MPa g.cm-3, and low water absorption properties (≈33% after 15 days of immersion). This approach spearheads the development of state-of-the-art living composites, which directly utilize bioactive materials to "self-grow" into materials endowed with exceptional mechanical and functional properties.

Bamboo-Inspired Crack-Face Bridging Fiber Reinforced Composites Simultaneously Attain High Strength and Toughness.

Biological strong and tough materials have been providing original structural designs for developing bioinspired high-performance composites. However, new synergistic strengthening and toughening mechanisms from bioinspired structures remain yet to be explored and employed to upgrade current carbon material reinforced polymer composites, which are keystone to various modern industries. In this work, from bamboo, the featured cell face-bridging fibers, are abstracted and embedded in a cellular network structure, and develop an epoxy resin/carbon composite featuring biomimetic architecture through a fabrication approach integrating freeze casting, carbonization, and resin infusion with carbon fibers (CFs) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Results show that this bamboo-inspired crack-face bridging fiber reinforced composite simultaneously possesses a high strength (430.8 MPa) and an impressive toughness (8.3 MPa m1/2 ), which surpass those of most resin-based nanocomposites reported in the literature. Experiments and multiscale simulation models reveal novel synergistic strengthening and toughening mechanisms arising from the 2D faces that bridge the CFs: sustaining and transferring loads to enhance the overall load-bearing ability and furthermore, incorporating CNTs pullout that resembles the intrinsic toughening at the molecular to nanoscale and strain delocalization, crack branching, and crack deflection as the extrinsic toughening at the microscale. These constitute a new effective and efficient strategy to develop simultaneously strong and tough composites through abstracting and implenting novel bioinspired structures, which contributes to addressing the long-standingly challenging attainment of both high strength and toughness for advanced structural materials.

Experimental and Numerical Simulation on the Penetration for Basic Magnesium Sulfate Cement Concrete.

The penetration resistance of the new material Basic Magnesium Sulfate Cement (BMSC) is studied through comprehensive application of an experimental and numerical simulation method. This paper consists of three parts. The first part introduces the preparation of Basic Magnesium Sulfate Cement Concrete (BMSCC) and the study of its dynamic mechanical properties. In the second part, on-site testing was carried out on both BMSCC and an ordinary Portland cement concrete (OPCC) target, and the anti-penetration performance of the two materials was analyzed and compared from three aspects: penetration depth, crater diameter and volume, and failure mode. In the last part, the numerical simulation analysis was carried out based on LS-DYNA, and the effects of factors, such as material strength and penetration velocity on the penetration depth, are analyzed. According to the results, the BMSCC targets have better penetration resistance performance than OPCC under the same conditions, mainly manifested in smaller penetration depth, smaller crater diameter and volume, as well as fewer cracks.