The Erc - European Research Council approved the ButterFly project supervised by Filippo Berto of the Department of Chemical Engineering Materials Environment as Principal Investigator under the Horizon Europe Programme, funding it with 2.5 million euros.

The ButterFly project focuses on designing super-strong structures subjected to cyclic stress (fatigue) and studying the most suitable manufacturing processes to produce such structures efficiently.

Fatigue of metallic materials is the predominant cause of failure in many structures working at different scales. It is estimated that 90% of operational failures occur due to fatigue problems. Recent accidents, even severe ones, unequivocally demonstrate the importance of such problems. Despite being a widespread critical issue, fatigue still has several aspects that need to be clarified, which could be strategic in various industrial sectors, impacting on a large scale on many applications.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of inspiration in a structure's multifunctional and topological optimisation. Natural systems are ingeniously designed and optimised to counteract fatigue failure. ButterFly's main objective is to investigate at different scales the mechanisms and principles that nature adopts to mitigate or even nullify fatigue damage and to understand which can be successfully applied to artificial and designed structures.