Building Material that is present in the market today is quite sturdy; however, a recent study has indicated that it could be further made to be more robust. Researchers in Australia are trying their hand at making the concrete much robust than what it is today.
As per their research, they have stated that the way concrete can be made to take a higher punishment rate is if a pattern applied from lobster shells is applied to them. This is a significant development for Concrete Reinforcing Fiber Market as the team believes that the new concrete will help built such building that will have the ability to withstand high winds, earthquakes, floods, and other conditions that occur due to climate change.
The team turned towards sea creatures, particularly lobsters, and other numerous marine creatures, which appeared on Earth about 400 million years ago. Since then, they have evolved as per the harsh environment that surrounded them under the seabed. Lobsters have really hard shells that are hard to break. They have an exciting shell design as it looks very thin from the outside, almost like it has one layer only. The shell is less than even one millimeter in thickness, and when it is observed under a microscope, one would find that it has hundreds of layers hidden underneath it. All the extra layers help the shell to be extra durable. The shell is also curvy in structure, and the orientation of different layers in connection with each other makes the structure of the shell even stronger.
Researchers realized in between their research that copying this shell structure from lobsters is not an easy task. Hence, they decided to try and use 3-D printing to make it. Since this technique is being used to make different types of plastic, metals, etc., in industries like automotive, biomedical, aerospace, etc., it is beneficial that the team is involved in making 3-D printing available for concrete as people are increasingly making bigger and bigger 3-D printers. They can now even build houses that are double floors. But as they are rather hard to transport, work is currently being done to make 3-D printers more modular to be assembled part by part.
In construction, this is the first time that it would be used to print copies of concrete in lobster patterns. The team involved in the study believes that this structure has the potential to be really strong, and if more is learned from these creatures, it is possible that lighter and stronger materials would come up in the future.