Bio-Inspired Structures
MIT OpenCourseWare graduate course examining how biological materials and structures inform modern advanced structural design. The course links traditional composite materials to bio-inspired analogues, tracing structural behavior across material, element, structural and system levels. Topics include structural, dynamic, thermodynamic and kinetic theories underlying natural and engineered material processing. Teaching combines guest lectures from researchers with hands-on activities, following an active-learning format rather than straight lecture. Materials are aimed at graduate students in aeronautics and astronautics or related fields who want to connect materials science with structural engineering principles drawn from nature. As with other MIT OCW offerings, lecture notes and course materials are freely available online, with no tuition or certificate cost since OCW does not offer certification.