Growing Confidence: Improving Flexure Strength of Mycelium-Bound Composites Through Digital Fabrication of Reinforcements

The project, Growing Confidence: Improving Flexure Strength of Mycelium-Bound Composites Through Digital Fabrication of Reinforcements, is the B.Arch Thesis of Anishwar Tirupathur.

The application of mycelium-bound composites as load-bearing elements within architecture offers opportunities to develop more sustainable ways of building. These organic materials are capable of consuming agricultural waste and are biodegradable, making mycelium an exemplar of a cradle-to-cradle material cycle. However, the use of these composites is limited by their relative weakness and lack of consistency in production. In its current state, these materials are largely limited to the creation of compression-only structures.

In order to reliably increase the flexure strength of mycelium-bound composites, this thesis proposes to use 3D-printed Polylactic Acid (PLA) filament to produce reinforcements that will help compensate for the material’s weakness in tension. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was used to help design the layout of reinforcements for the test samples. The strength of these samples was then evaluated through compression and three-point flexure testing. Additionally, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to help evaluate the bond between the mycelium and the PLA.

Based on the results of the experiments conducted, new speculative architectural applications are presented and discussed and areas of further research are identified.

Anishwar would like to thank Professors Juney Lee and Mary-Lou Arscott for their advisement of this thesis project.

This project was made possible with support from FRFF Grant ##2024-040. Addition images can be found here.