The Importance Of Biomimetics

When it comes to scientific innovation, why replicating nature is not the best way to invent?

When it comes to scientific inventions, where do they actually from? What is the magic formula or source? The truth of the matter is, there is no source or formula; just an improvisation of a former idea. Then the real question is what is this “former idea”? Most scientists look towards nature for inspiration. This activity is called biomimetics or biomimicry, the scientific imitation of a model in nature for the purpose of solving complex human issues. Whether one calls it biomimicry, bionics or copycatting, the fact of the matter is nature has provided a substantial starting point for many modern, scientific innovations. Take for example, the concept

When mankind envisioned flight, he probably never thought anything heavier than a bird could get airborne. After all, birds are much lighter than airplanes and jets. Even Leonardo da Vinci’s detailed drawings and concepts were unsuccessful at creating a craft that was capable of flight. Several centuries would pass before scientists came to understand why. A bird’s wings perform two different yet crucial sets of tasks. The shape of its wings provides it with lift whenever air passes over and the wings’ movements provide power. For humans to take flight, scientists had to separate lift and power. They assigned lifting to the wings and transferred the power source to a propeller and engine, which no bird possesses. The important lesson here is that mere imitation of bird flight would not yield any result. At some point, scientists had to abandon nature’s program or formula apply their own sets of concepts and

His work is a classic example of biomimetics. Mattheck’s fascination with trees has led to many significant innovations in design engineering. One area of his study is the junction where the tree branch meets the trunk. According to Mattheck, the tree has cleverly designed the curvature at this junction so as to lessen stress. As trees grow, they become sensitive to stress so they deliberately grow material in this junction to minimize stress. Mattheck even developed a computer program that stimulates tree growth. The result was a reduction in the amount of stress concentration which allowed for slender components. This finding was applied to vehicle manufacturing because reducing even a few percent off a vehicle’s weight means lower fuel costs and usage, fewer carbon dioxide emissions and lower material expenses. If you take a closer look at trees, they do not grow a curvature for the same purpose as Mattheck assumed. However the main point is that studying the curvature of tree branch-trunk junction provided Mattheck with a starting