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Developing the Experimental Basis for an Evaluation of Scaling Properties of Brittle and ‘Quasi-Brittle’ Biological Materials

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Biomimetic Research for Architecture and Building Construction

Part of the book series: Biologically-Inspired Systems ((BISY,volume 8))

Abstract

The development of lightweight structures exhibiting a high energy dissipation capacity and a locally adapted puncture resistance is of increasing interest in building construction. As discussed in Chap. 7, inspiration can be found in biology, as numerous examples exist that have evolved one or even several of these properties. Major challenges in this interdisciplinary approach, i.e. the transfer of biological principles to building constructional elements, are scaling (different dimensions) and (at least for the botanic examples) the fact that different material classes constitute the structural basis for the functions of interest. Therefore, a mathematical description of the mechanical properties and the scalability is required that is applicable for both biological and technical materials. A basic requisite for the establishment of mathematical descriptions are well-defined test setups rendering a reliable data basis. In the following, two biological role models from the animal and plant kingdoms are presented, namely, sea urchin spines and coconut endocarp, and two experimental setups for quasi-static and dynamic testing of biological and bio-inspired technical materials are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre (SFB/Transregio) 141 ‘Biological Design and Integrative Structures’/project B01 ‘Scaling of Properties of Highly Porous Biological and Biomimetic Constructions’. The Plant Biomechanics Group Freiburg also thanks E. Heizmann and UNIVEG Freiburg, Germany, for providing the coconuts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plant Biomechanics Group, Botanic Garden, Faculty of Biology, University of Freiburg, Schänzlestraße 1, D-79104, Freiburg, Germany

    Stefanie Schmier, Georg Bauer & Thomas Speck

  2. Freiburg Centre for Interactive Materials and Bioinspired Technologies (FIT), University of Freiburg, Georges-Köhler-Allee 105, D-79110, Freiburg, Germany

    Stefanie Schmier, Georg Bauer & Thomas Speck

  3. Applied Mineralogy (AMIN), University of Tübingen, Wilhelmstraße 56, 72074, Tübingen, Germany

    Christoph Lauer, Katharina Klang, Kathrin Termin, Christoph Berthold & Klaus G. Nickel

  4. Institute for Materials Testing, Materials Science and Strength of Materials (IMWF), University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 32, 70569, Stuttgart, Germany

    Immanuel Schäfer & Siegfried Schmauder

  5. Plant Biomechanics Group, Botanic Garden, Faculty of Biology, University of Freiburg, Schänzlestraße 1, D-79104, Freiburg, Germany

    Marc Thielen

Authors
  1. Stefanie Schmier
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  2. Christoph Lauer
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  3. Immanuel Schäfer
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  4. Katharina Klang
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  5. Georg Bauer
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  6. Marc Thielen
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  7. Kathrin Termin
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  8. Christoph Berthold
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  9. Siegfried Schmauder
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  10. Thomas Speck
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  11. Klaus G. Nickel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefanie Schmier .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. of Building Structures, University of Stuttgart Inst. of Building Structures, Stuttgart, Germany

    Jan Knippers

  2. Angewandte Mineralogie, Universität Tübingen Angewandte Mineralogie, Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Klaus G. Nickel

  3. Botanischer Garten der Uni. Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Thomas Speck

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Schmier, S. et al. (2016). Developing the Experimental Basis for an Evaluation of Scaling Properties of Brittle and ‘Quasi-Brittle’ Biological Materials. In: Knippers, J., Nickel, K., Speck, T. (eds) Biomimetic Research for Architecture and Building Construction. Biologically-Inspired Systems, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46374-2_14

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