Title: Fabrication and Performance of Bionic Strain Component

Abstract: Strain sensors are widely used in various fields. It works as converting strain into electrical quantity, in types of acceleration sensors, force sensors, weight sensors, etc. In addition, with the advanced in big data, cloud computing and concepts of Internet of things, strain sensors have been widely concerned.

In this study, from the perspective of coupling bionics, a kind of scorpion form Southeast Asia (Heterormetrus petersii) is selected as biological specimen. Inspired by the biological characteristics, that the crack-shaped slit sensilla is ultra-sensitive to vibration, bio-inspired strain components were designed and fabricated.

Firstly, after compared types of scorpion specimens collected, the Heterormetrus petersii is selected as biological model. Morphology and 3D structure of the slit sensilla were observed by SEM, μ-CT and ultrathin histological slice, to obtain the structural characteristics. Nano indentation is used to check mechanical characteristic of the biomechanical material.

Secendly, stress/strain magnification models, based on coupling of structure and material, were established. The models are according to the feature size and material properties of biological organ, which aim to reveale the mechanism of stress/strain efficient amplification of slit. The discontinuous rigid layer and the flexible layer model (for stress-amplification), and the rigid-flexible coupling of brick-embedded-mud model (for strain-amplification) are established. Consequently, the mechanism of ultra-high sensitivity of slit is explained, and the amplification efficiency is figured out.

Then, two components for vibration sensing were designed and fabricated based on the stress and strain amplification models. The performance tests were conducted, and the results indicated that the as built bio-inspired strain sensing components have advantages of high-sensitivity and superfast-response.

Finally, the application of bio-inspired strain-sensing components were explored. An auxiliary circuit was designed and manufactured. The application test results show that the bio-inspired strain-sensing components have potential application in fields of human physiological detection and motion monitoring.

Biography: Dr. Han Zhiwu is a professor in Bionic Science and Engineering, and Dean in Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), Jilin University. His research interests include machinery biomimetics and simulation, functional surface biomimetics, biomimetics sensor, and bionic technology applied in engineering, etc.

He has been selected Distinguished professor of Chang Jiang Scholars Program, the Distinguished Young Scholar of Natural Science Fund of China. He was senior visiting scholar at Oxford University in UK. He is the State Representative of International Society of Bionic Engineering (ISBE), and Fellow.

Prof. Han has attained 4 scientific and technological awards on the state and provincial level and 2 international academic awards. He has published more than 100 articles are indexed in SCI，such as Nature, Small, ACS Nano, Langmiur, APL, Nanoscale, etc.

Prof. Han is Editor-in-chief of Journal of Advanced Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Associate Editor of International Journal of Complex Systems — Computing, Sensing and Control (IJCS), the editorial Board Member of Journal of Bionic Engineering, .and the editorial Board Member of Tribology.