Marine sponges could inform structure of future buildings

In a paper published in Nature Materials, the researchers showed that the diagonally-reinforced square lattice-like skeletal structure of Euplectella aspergillum has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than the traditional lattice designs that have been used for centuries in the construction of buildings and bridges.

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"We found that the sponge's diagonal reinforcement strategy achieves the highest buckling resistance for a given amount of material, which means that we can build stronger and more resilient structures by intelligently rearranging existing material within the structure," said Matheus Fernandes, a graduate student at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and first author of the paper.

"In many fields, such as aerospace engineering, the strength-to-weight ratio of a structure is critically important," said James Weaver, a Senior Scientist at SEAS and one of the corresponding authors of the paper. "This biologically-inspired geometry could provide a roadmap for designing lighter, stronger structures for a wide range of applications."