Current efforts and future opportunities of bone-inspired intelligent materials that can sense mechanical loading and adapt

Abstract

Most materials have fixed properties. However, the environment to which these materials are exposed continuously changes, and as a result, the stimuli applied to the materials also vary dynamically. Unfortunately, most materials cannot adapt to these changes, and conventional material synthesis is designed assuming a fixed environment. Because of the fixed properties of these materials, designing materials based on worst-case scenarios leads to inefficiencies, such as overdesign. On the contrary, bone, as a biological material, has a unique adaptive mechanism that its mineral content rises under stress while maintaining lightweight and toughness. For these reasons, research into bone-inspired materials is actively conducted for next-generation structural materials. This paper introduces synthetic materials that exhibit intelligent behaviors by adaptively changing their responses to environmental variations inspired by bone. Furthermore, we will discuss the current limitations of bone-inspired intelligent materials and discuss opportunities for future research.