Contact

Civil Engineering Department, School of Engineering, University of Santiago.

Av. Ecuador 3659, Estación Central, Santiago, Chile

Tel: +(562) 27182803

erick.saavedra@usach.cl


 
 

Bio-inspired materials
 In recent years, the investigation of new strategies inspired by nature for the development of more advanced materials has received considerable attention in scientific communities. By mimicking morphological patterns and natural mechanisms of interaction among basic constituents, scientists have found promising guidelines in the next generation of engineering materials.

 

Wood microstructure can be understood as the result of an optimisation process developed by nature over millions of years. One of its main features is its hierarchical nature distributed across multiple spatial scales. This important feature has been widely investigated over the last few years by means of multi-scale finite element models.

From an engineering point of view, one of the most important consequences in fully understanding the mechanical behaviour of wood and in general, natural materials, at several scale levels, is the inspiration of new strategies to design more advanced materials.

 

 

Some publications in this area:

  • Saavedra Flores, E.I., DiazDelaO, F.A., Friswell, M.I. and Ajaj, R.M., "Investigation on the wood cell-wall composite by an approach based on homogenisation and uncertainty analysis". Submitted to Composite Structures, 2013 .
  • Saavedra Flores, E.I. and Friswell, M.I., "Ultrastructural mechanisms of deformation and failure in wood under tension". International Journal of Solids and Structures, 50 2013, pp. 2050-2060.
  • Saavedra Flores, E.I., Friswell, M.I. and Xia, Y., "Variable stiffness biological and bio-inspired materials". Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, 24(5) 2013, pp. 529-540.
  • Saavedra Flores, E.I., Murugan, M.S., Friswell, M.I. and de Souza Neto, E.A., "Reorientation of fibres and local mechanisms of deformation in a wood-inspired composite". Journal of Multiscale Modelling , 4 (1) 2012, 125003 (15 pages).
  • Saavedra Flores, E.I. and Friswell, M.I., "Multi-scale finite element model for a new material inspired by the mechanics and structure of wood cell-walls". Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 60(7) 2012, pp. 1296-1309.
  • Saavedra Flores, E.I., de Souza Neto, E.A. and Pearce, C., "A large strain computational multi-scale model for the dissipative behaviour of wood cell-wall". Computational Materials Science, 50 2011, pp. 1202-1211.