EMIEIDEI IN THE NATURAL WORLD.

• Author: Wharton, Kelsey
• Position: Eye on Ecology - Nature-inspired infrastructure

BUILT OF CONCRETE and steel, rooted in the ground and towering above it, urban infrastructure looks like the epitome of permanence. Yet, these structures--highways and bridges, skyscrapers and electrical grids--are embedded in the natural world, which is changing with increasing severity and regularity. Storm winds and rain pummel exposed surfaces; earthquakes literally shake foundations; and rising sea levels threaten to inundate coastal structures.

How can we build safe, dependable infrastructure while accounting for the unpredictability of the natural world? Engineers and scientists at Arizona State University are answering these challenges with new designs, materials, and knowledge aimed at making infrastructure resilient.

Unlike traditional infrastructure, resilient infrastructure is designed with dynamic environments in mind. Researchers at the Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics (CBBG) are developing materials and methods to engineer durable, adaptable infrastructure that is environmentally sustainable. They are approaching the issue through bio-geotechnical engineering, an emerging field that explores how soils behave and how that behavior affects structures. In order to create infrastructure with optimal performance in the face of nature's mercurial temperament, the researchers are exploring solutions that nature already has devised. This includes microbes that are able to harden porous soils and tree root systems that can stabilize soils and prevent erosion.

"In billions of years of evolution, nature has come up with some very elegant solutions to the problems we want to solve," says Edward Kavazanjian, director of CBBG. "By employing or mimicking these natural processes, we should be able to devise some of our own elegant solutions."

Ants offer another intriguing muse. "Ants are 100 times more energy efficient at tunneling than our current technology. They excavate very carefully, and their tunnels almost never collapse," explains Kavazanjian, also a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. "If we could do what ants do, we could make underground mining much safer."

CBBG draws on collaboration and expertise from across ASU, including Schools of Engineering, Earth and Space Exploration, and Life Sciences, as well as the Teachers College. In addition, the center partners with 16 universities around the world, more than a dozen private companies, and multiple public infrastructure...