Biomimetic materials
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Biomimetic materials Julian F.V. Vincenta) Centre for Biomimetic and Natural Technologies, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom (Received 6 May 2008; accepted 17 July 2008) I’ve long been suspicious about attempts to see energy as the overwhelmingly central item setting both options and criteria for design in nature. Indeed, when I tried to create a conceptual framework for teaching biology to college students, I ended up putting energy distinctly second to information. Where energy rules, one can find some analog of voltage potential. But in nature, who eats whom boils down to the design and operation of one’s particular teeth and other equipment. I once set up an electrical analog of an ecosystem, but it gave an unreasonable picture until I added ad hoc diodes to keep the trees from eating the caterpillars at night and other such misbehavior. (Steve Vogel, Duke University, 2007)
In materials processing, Nature replaces the massive use of energy (for example high temperatures or harsh chemical reactions) with the use of information (which equates with structure at all levels, molecule to ecosystem). Indeed, most of the exceptional functionality of biological materials is due to their complex structure, driven by their chemical composition and morphology derived from DNA. It is here that the most important aspect of biomimetics emerges, and it has the power to redesign engineering. I. INTRODUCTION
Organic evolution has solved many technical problems and has been doing it repeatedly for a good many years. Examples are the temporary attachment by hooks of a seed to the fur of a passing animal, thus obtaining “free” transport for a seed that is too heavy to be spread by the wind, dry adhesion achieved by the conformable “hairs” on the gecko’s foot that enable it to run up walls and across ceilings,1 and the superhydrophobic surfaces of many plant leaves that stops them being wetted and weighed down with water and enables the run-off to carry dirt with it.2 Since these designs are very amenable to our current skills in materials processing, the immediate response is to take some of these solutions and incorporate them into our own technology. Then the seed hooks become Velcro,3 the gecko’s trick is used to make robots that climb walls, the plant surface informs waterproof clothing and Lotusan for self-cleaning surfaces on buildings. These are all examples of successful biomimicry (or biomimetics, bionics, bio-inspired design . . .). These successes do not necessarily help our deeper understanding of biology, although many people believe that it is a good way to innovate. The assumption is made that our way of processing and forming materials is proper.
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Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected] DOI: 10.1557/JMR.2008.0380 3140
http://journals.cambridge.org
J. Mater. Res., Vol. 23, No. 12, Dec 2008 Downloaded: 16 Mar 2015
However, biomimetics at this level is still largely adventitious. More often than not, the biomimetic abstr
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