Biomimetics
Biological materials are highly organized from the molecular to the nano-, micro-, and macroscales, often in a hierarchical manner with intricate nanoarchitecture that ultimately makes up a myriad of different functional elements.
Nature has solved engineering problems such as self-healing abilities, environmental exposure tolerance and resistance, hydrophobicity, self-assembly, and harnessing solar energy.
Conversely, biophysics is also a biologist's approach to problems of physical science and engineering, although this aspect has largely been neglected.In 1960, Jack E. Steele coined a similar term, bionics, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where Otto Schmitt also worked.
Bionics entered the same dictionary earlier in 1960 as "a science concerned with the application of data about the functioning of biological systems to the solution of engineering problems".
Bionic took on a different connotation when Martin Caidin referenced Jack Steele and his work in the novel Cyborg, which later resulted in the 1974 television series The Six Million Dollar Man and its spin-offs.
Biomimicry is defined in the book as a "new science that studies nature's models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problems".
[16] The potential long-term impacts of biomimicry were quantified in a 2013 Fermanian Business & Economic Institute Report commissioned by the San Diego Zoo.
The aerodynamics of streamlined design of improved Japanese high speed train Shinkansen 500 Series were modelled after the beak of Kingfisher bird.
[23] Biorobots based on the physiology and methods of locomotion of animals include BionicKangaroo which moves like a kangaroo, saving energy from one jump and transferring it to its next jump;[24] Kamigami Robots, a children's toy, mimic cockroach locomotion to run quickly and efficiently over indoor and outdoor surfaces,[25] and Pleobot, a shrimp-inspired robot to study metachronal swimming and the ecological impacts of this propulsive gait on the environment.
[37] The core idea of the biomimetic philosophy is that nature's inhabitants including animals, plants, and microbes have the most experience in solving problems and have already found the most appropriate ways to last on planet Earth.
[40] In parallel, recent advancements in fabrication techniques, computational imaging, and simulation tools have opened up new possibilities to mimic nature across different architectural scales.
A historic example of biomorphic architecture dates back to Egyptian, Greek and Roman cultures, using tree and plant forms in the ornamentation of structural columns.
Researchers in the Sapienza University of Rome were inspired by the natural ventilation in termite mounds and designed a double façade that significantly cuts down over lit areas in a building.
They proposed a porous humidity control material (HCM) using sepiolite and calcium chloride with water vapor adsorption-desorption content at 550 grams per meter squared.
[47][48] In structural engineering, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) has incorporated biomimetic characteristics in an adaptive deployable "tensegrity" bridge.
Understanding the highly diverse and multi functional biological materials and discovering approaches to replicate such structures will lead to advanced and more efficient technologies.
Bone, nacre (abalone shell), teeth, the dactyl clubs of stomatopod shrimps and bamboo are great examples of damage tolerant materials.
[71] Engineers could in principle use such a material, if it could be reengineered to have a long enough life, for parachute lines, suspension bridge cables, artificial ligaments for medicine, and other purposes.
[77] A self-repairing membrane inspired by rapid self-sealing processes in plants was developed for inflatable lightweight structures such as rubber boats or Tensairity constructions.
The researchers applied a thin soft cellular polyurethane foam coating on the inside of a fabric substrate, which closes the crack if the membrane is punctured with a spike.
On rough surfaces, non-wetting liquids give rise to composite solid-liquid-air interfaces, their contact angles determined by the distribution of wet and air-pocket areas.
The achievement of superliquiphobicity involves increasing the fractional flat geometrical area (fLA) and Rf, leading to surfaces that actively repel liquids.
[95][96] Other natural surfaces with these capabilities can include Beetle carapaces,[97] and cacti spines,[98] which may exhibit rough features at multiple size scales.
These surfaces find utility in self-cleaning, anti-icing, anti-fogging, antifouling, enhanced condensation,[98] and more, presenting innovative solutions to challenges in biomedicine, desalination, atmospheric water harvesting, and energy conversion.
In essence, superliquiphobicity, inspired by natural models like the lotus leaf, capitalizes on re-entrant geometries and surface properties to create interfaces that actively repel liquids.
[114] In 2010, the dressmaker Donna Sgro made a dress from Teijin Fibers' Morphotex, an undyed fabric woven from structurally coloured fibres, mimicking the microstructure of Morpho butterfly wing scales.
The wedge-shaped structures cause a continuously changing refractive index as light travels through the coating, significantly reducing lens flare.
[122] In an effort to reduce aircraft noise researchers have looked to the leading edge of owl feathers, which have an array of small finlets or rachis adapted to disperse aerodynamic pressure and provide nearly silent flight to the bird.
The natural system being mimicked and used as a template is grazing animals concentrated by pack predators that must move on after eating, trampling, and manuring an area, and returning only after it has fully recovered.
Possible applications include using the viral cage to produce uniformly shaped and sized quantum dot semiconductor nanoparticles through a series of pH washes.
