Dive Brief:
- Researchers are looking to nanomaterials and nanomachines as the building blocks and builders of the future. The ultra-small components are repeated, affording strength in numbers. For nanomaterials, for instance, the structural and material characteristics of a given medium, such as ceramic, are imbued with unprecedented characteristics like flexibility.
- James Tour, a chemistry professor at Rice University specializing in nanotechnology, recently discussed his research into motorized, nanoscale builders with the Houston Chronicle.
- According to Tour, the potential for nanotechnology in construction is significant. His nanomachines emulate an automobile with an engine, four-wheeled axis, chasse and a motor. Photo-responsive, they can be programmed to move in unison in response to tasks, creating structures from the bottom up from the building blocks of matter.
Dive Insight:
Tour isn’t alone in thinking small about the future of construction. California Institute of Technology materials science and mechanics professor Julia Greer has developed a system of nano-scale trusses atop nanoscale trusses that allows a brittle material like ceramic to bend like a polymer. Materials like these call into the class of metamaterials, which have properties not found among their own kind in nature.
Other similar examples include a perforated plastic cloaking device that allows sound waves to move through objects, developed by researchers at Duke University in 2014.
Today, most innovations in construction processes are reaching the market at a larger scale than Tour is exploring. From robotic builders that work like termites to self-assembling, load-bearing blocks, the mechanics of construction is looking at programmability, allowing project teams to send instructions digitally to these devices, which would get to work carrying out their orders.
