(65j) Engineering Earth-Mimetic Sustainable Mechanical Materials

Earth materials resemble living organisms, evolving over millions of years to develop unique mechanical properties through nature's architectural design. Their microstructure governs crucial functions such as soil stability, carbon sequestration, groundwater storage, and nutrient delivery. As we pursue sustainable and resilient materials, the complex composition of natural materials—featuring colloidal particles, polymers, and microbes—and their mechanical properties offer valuable inspiration. Here, I will briefly describe three areas where we have successfully developed mechanical materials, a distinctive class of soft materials with tailored flow properties, inspired by the microstructure of earth materials. First, I will demonstrate a geo-inspired soft particulate system, 'Soft Earth,' which exhibits interaction-controlled brittle-ductile failure transitions. Second, I will elaborate on a multiscale mechanical framework for geo-inspired sustainable materials design, using baseball's rubbing mud as our model system. Third, I will conclude with a scalable rheological framework for designing shock-absorbing materials. I believe this emerging field of earth-mimetic soft materials will serve as a platform to explore sustainable materials for the circular economy, climate-resilient and precision agriculture systems, and analog systems for terraforming planets.