biomimesis in architecture

Show is not everything

Mediocre contributions, an architectural and wow cheers for the Regional Development: A tour of the Expo 2012
Is the Expo as a test of strength even at the end of superlatives? For the first time after many years of event is important, but the associated enhancement of the area.

It was then that a bird of paradise, better known as bird of paradise flower, which the Austrian architecture firm Soma inspiration for this innovative design. If the hungry, to be served after consuming nectar from flowers hummingbirds, it ends up that is not random in the hope clearly upward petal. The action follows immediately: Due to the weight of the bird is lowered, the lever arm, this in turn expands the bract apart, and so reveals the inner workings of the whole juicy Strelitzia.

"We wanted to take a model of nature," says Kristina Schinegger, head of the Salzburg office Soma. "The principle of physical force, which in turn causes a certain movement, has us very intrigued. We wanted to extend this idea to the architecture." Biomimesis called this merely observing from Mother Nature in the jargon.

At this year's World Expo in Yeosu, South Korea, one can marvel at the result of biomimetic thinking in all its glory. Never before has the technical principle of pressure and the resulting deformation was realized in this dimension. At a length of nearly 160 meters, the Ocean & Coast theme pavilion at the Salzburg architect depending on your mood change his outward appearance - and hence regulate the sunlight, and exposure of the interior.

Slams the sun from the sky, are the 108 fins on the west side in a relaxed mode. The skin is closed. As soon as the sun disappears, however, is exercised by small electric motors of up and down pressure on the blades up to 13 meters high. The result: The arch laminated, fiberglass reinforced plastic gills and thereby deform and fold up to an angle of 60 degrees. And hundreds of South Koreans clap her hands in delight. Every single time.

The theme pavilion of Soma is a huge hit at the Expo 2012th The roughly six-second play of the up-and Zuklappens fascinated not only laymen. Even the experts are entranced by the technology. The South Korean architecture magazine space devoted to the facade in the June edition of a complete dossier. The news channel CNN was the new high-tech skin even a TV-worthy post. As one can ever ignore the quality of building construction.

bionic hip joint designs through biomimetics

Skilled builders
 Hip joints like this are made of metal alloys and artificial materials. Jena materials scientists have a vision, but even being able to produce in the laboratory of natural materials - on the basis of proteins. Photo: Roland fruit
Jena material scientists want to crib secrets of nature to create in the laboratory even universal biological building blocks. With proteins they succeed to some extent already.
Jena. Whether the knee joint, knuckle or an entire hip, whether ossicles, metallic mesh scaffolding, the ailing blood vessels based or heart valve, the list of "spare parts" that man has developed in order to keep his body longer functional, is quite long. The grafting of artificial joints has become routine, the insertion of stents and bypass surgery for heart and circulatory problems as well. In close cooperation to develop medical and materials scientists are better implants, which are not rejected by the body as foreign, but complications quickly and grow into the body's own tissues.
"Materials science and medicine have come a long way here," says Prof. Dr. Klaus D. Jandt, Chair of Materials Science at the University of Jena. "But again, these are for man-made materials. Our dream is to have materials available that match those of nature." To make this dream a reality, it is at the Institute of Jandt worked for five years with hypertension. And with success.
The branch of science on which the researchers move it has a name: bionics. Jandt also referred to as biomimetics, because "we are inspired by nature," explains the scientist. The building, which the researchers are experimenting with his team here, are proteins, ie proteins.
"Proteins are extremely versatile. If you consider that the biota combined 22 amino acids into the thousands of different proteins that have very different properties and functions that they it is building high-strength structures, as it still is not the man to now dominates, then is one of the pressing comparison with Lego building blocks from which one can build anything with "said Jandt the fascination of the proteins.
He cites the example spider silk. The threads that synthesize proteins from the insects are up to five times stronger than steel. For an example of extreme Jandt effectiveness in terms of material usage and results. Or blood clotting. "A blood vessel is injured, starts a complex biochemical reaction, up to 15 clotting factors are activated at this time to stop bleeding and to close a wound. A very important function of this protein fibrin and its thread-like soluble precursor fibrinogen has," said Jandt . Fibrinogen strands join together to branch out and eventually form a stable three-dimensional network. "This makes these devices very interesting," said Jandt, who was honored for his work on the interaction of fibrinogen with structured material surfaces in February with the Thuringian Research Award for Applied Research.

Robot designed from cockroach example

Biomimetics
Robot learns acrobatic maneuvers Dash a cockroach
Cockroaches have developed an effective maneuver to quickly get out of sight: you swing to hang over an edge and underneath. U.S. scientists have taught a robot this acrobatic trick.

Cockroaches may, if they threaten to fall on a projecting edge hold, with their claws out, then swing around and land at the bottom with your legs up. If the insect is this - why, then U.S. scientists have asked him one of reproduced robots should not be able to? So they Dash taught the elegant change.

Robotic cockroach

Dash, an acronym for Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod, is a ten centimeters long and 16 gram robot made of cardboard. The six-legged, the Milli Biomimetic Systems Lab at the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley) was developed, modeled on a cockroach.
Video: Robot learns Dash of cockroach (0:41)
Thus Dash swing like a cockroach at the edge of a stone slab, can the researchers had to resort to a trick: Unlike the natural pattern Dash has no claws on its legs, allowing him to hold on to. The researchers therefore some velcro on the feet and on the edge and the underside of the slab are glued to simulate claws. But Dash was able to swing like the cockroach to the edge and then hang out with his feet up on the plate.

Cockroaches and geckos

The experiments conducted by researchers at the milli Biomimetic Systems Lab, along with colleagues from the Polypedal Lab at UC Berkeley to Robert Full. They had discovered the first to show that cockroaches can carry out this change. By chance, they discovered that geckos are in a camp - complete believed to also use many other small animals of this maneuver, since it is an efficient way to quickly make it invisible to pursuers. They turned to the scientists of the Milli Biomimetic Systems Lab to find out whether this movement can also be applied to robotics.
 Third
Cockroach, gecko and Dash: acrobatics in comparison : replaced Velcro claws.