Material selection and processing challenges with additive manufacturing in biomimicry for biomedical applications

Over millions of years of evolution, nature has created multifunctional high-performance patterns to achieve the best optimized outcome for specific mechanical, optical, electrical, tactual, auditory, and olfactory esthesis requirements. Bio-inspired technology, or biomimicry, is a branch that deals with learning these concepts and design principles from nature and inspiring modern science and technology to solve human challenges. However, mimicking complicated nature-inspired architectures exceeds the capability of even modern fabrication technologies, and this opens ample scope for research. In this field, additive manufacturing (AM) has shown remarkably high potential to develop complicated structures and geometries as compared to traditional ones. In this chapter, we will discuss the advancements and successes that AM has achieved in biomimicry, along with its limitations regarding the usage of materials and their processing techniques, and how to select an optimal material and a process for a specific application using multicriteria decision-making methodology.