Biomimicry for Materials, Design and Habitats: Innovations and Applications and is a survey of the recent work of recognized experts in a variety of fields who employ biomimicry and related paradigms to solve key problems of interest within design, science, technology, and society. Topics covered include innovations from biomimicry in materials, product design, architecture, and biological sciences. The book is a useful resource for educators, designers, researchers, engineers, and materials scientists, taking them from the theory behind biomimicry to real world applications. Living systems have evolved innovative solutions to challenges that humans face on a daily basis. Nonlinear multifunctional systems that have a symbiotic relationship with their environment are the domain of nature. Morphological solutions for buildings inspired by nature can be used for skins, surfaces, and structures to facilitate environmental adaptation of buildings to increase occupant comfort and reduce energy demands. Birds can teach us to produce novel structures, 3D printing can be informed by oysters and mussels, and mycelium may show us the way to fabricate new biocomposites in architecture. Therefore, it is in nature that we seek inspiration for the solutions to tomorrow's challenges. - Presents new directions in education and the various applications of biomimicry within industry, including bio-inspired entrepreneurship - Discusses the role of biomimicry in education, innovation, and product design - Covers applications in systems engineering and design, novel materials with applications in 3D printing, and bio-inspired architecture - Includes perspectives on sustainability detailing the role that bio-inspiration or biomimicry plays in sustainability

Detailing techniques in wound healing and reconstruction, this reference describes the mechanisms and architecture of biological systems to formulate and design natural and synthetic compounds, degradable and non-degradable scaffolds, and targeted drug delivery devices. It offers strategies to control adhesive interactions, elicit specific cellular responses, and improve the biocompatibility, performance, and durability of prosthetic materials. Covering advances in the field, the book discusses the effect of topographical features on cell behaviors such as orientation, adhesion, migration, proliferation, and differentation.

This book explores the structure-property-process relationship of biomaterials from engineering and biomedical perspectives, and the potential of bio-inspired materials and their applications. A large variety of natural materials with outstanding physical and mechanical properties have appeared in the course of evolution. From a bio-inspired viewpoint, materials design requires a novel and highly cross disciplinary approach. Considerable benefits can be gained by providing an integrated approach using bio-inspiration with materials science and engineering. The book is divided into three parts; Part One focuses on mechanical aspects, dealing with conventional material properties: strength, toughness, hardness, wear resistance, impact resistance, self-healing, adhesion, and adaptation and morphing. Part Two focuses on functional materials with unique capabilities, such as self-cleaning, stimuli-response, structural color, anti-reflective materials, catalytic materials for clean energy conversion and storage, and other related topics. Part Three describes how to mimic natural materials processes to synthesize materials with low cost, efficient and environmentally friendly approaches. For each chapter, the approach is to describe situations in nature first and then biomimetic materials, fulfilling the need for an interdisciplinary approach which overlaps both engineering and materials science.

This full-color volume proposes an innovative methodology that uses the functional aspects of nature to inspire improvements in building design and form, encouraging designers to apply biomimetic principles to architectural processes. The book focuses on the analysis of various animal skins, translating the principles of communication, thermoregulation, water balance, and protection into the built environment. Illustrating how biomimetic principles can create a more sustainable way of building, this is the first time the author's new methodology-as well as the 12 case studies-has been published.

This book provides the readers with a timely guide to the application of biomimetic principles in architecture and engineering design. As a result of a combined effort by two internationally recognized authorities, the biologist Werner Nachtigall and the architect Göran Pohl, the book describes the principles which can be used to compare nature and technology, and at the same time it presents detailed explanations and examples showing how biology can be used as a source of inspiration and “translated” in building and architectural solutions (biomimicry). Even though nature cannot be directly copied, the living world can provide architects and engineers with a wealth of analogues and inspirations for their own creative designs. But how can analysis of natural entities give rise to advanced and sustainable design? By reporting on the latest bionic design methods and using extensive artwork, the book guides readers through the field of nature-inspired architecture, offering an extraordinary resource for professional architects, engineers, designers and urban planners, as well as for university teachers, researchers and students. Natural evolution is seen throughout the book as a powerful resource that can serve architecture and design by providing innovative, optimal and sustainable solutions.

This book comprises a first survey of the Collaborative Research Center SFB-TRR 141 ‘Biological Design and Integrative Structures – Analysis, Simulation and Implementation in Architecture’, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft since October 2014. The SFB-TRR 141 provides a collaborative framework for architects and engineers from the University of Stuttgart, biologists and physicists from the University of Freiburg and geoscientists and evolutionary biologists from the University of Tübingen. The programm is conceptualized as a dialogue between the disciplines and is based on the belief that that biomimetic research has the potential to lead everyone involved to new findings far beyond his individual reach. During the last few decades, computational methods have been introduced into all fields of science and technology. In architecture, they enable the geometric differentiation of building components and allow the fabrication of porous or fibre-based materials with locally adjusted physical and chemical properties. Recent developments in simulation technologies focus on multi-scale models and the interplay of mechanical phenomena at various hierarchical levels. In the natural sciences, a multitude of quantitative methods covering diverse hierarchical levels have been introduced. These advances in computational methods have opened a new era in biomimetics: local differentiation at various scales, the main feature of natural constructions, can for the first time not only be analysed, but to a certain extent also be transferred to building construction. Computational methodologies enable the direct exchange of information between fields of science that, until now, have been widely separated. As a result they lead to a new approach to biomimetic research, which, hopefully, contributes to a more sustainable development in architecture and building construction.

The inner architecture of a material can have an astonishing effect on its overall properties and is vital to understand when designing new materials. Nature is a master at designing hierarchical structures and so researchers are looking at biological examples for inspiration, specifically to understand how nature arranges the inner architectures for a particular function in order to apply these design principles into man-made materials. Materials Design Inspired by Nature is the first book to address the relationship between the inner architecture of natural materials and their physical properties for materials design. The book explores examples from plants, the marine world, arthropods and bacteria, where the inner architecture is exploited to obtain specific mechanical, optical or magnetic properties along with how these design principles are used in man-made products. Details of the experimental methods used to investigate hierarchical structures are also given. Written by leading experts in bio-inspired materials research, this is essential reading for anyone developing new materials.

The development of materials for any replacement or regeneration application should be based on the thorough understanding of the structure to be substituted. This is true in many fields, but particularly exigent in substitution and regeneration medicine. The demands upon the material properties largely depend on the site of application and the function it has to restore. Ideally, a replacement material should mimic the living tissue from a mechanical, chemical, biological and functional point of view. Of course this is much easier to write down than to implement in clinical practice. Mineralized tissues such as bones, tooth and shells have attracted, in the last few years, considerable interest as natural anisotropic composite structures with adequate mechanical properties. In fact, Nature is and will continue to be the best materials scientist ever. Who better than nature can design complex structures and control the intricate phenomena (processing routes) that lead to the final shape and structure (from the macro to the nano level) of living creatures? Who can combine biological and physico-chemical mechanisms in such a way that can build ideal structure-properties relationships? Who, else than Nature, can really design smart structural components that respond in-situ to exterior stimulus, being able of adapting constantly their microstructure and correspondent properties? In the described philosophy line, mineralized tissues and biomineralization processes are ideal examples to learn-from for the materials scientist of the future.

Nature has always been a source of inspiration for the design of the human environment. The analysis of biological constructions can not only lead to astonishing technical solutions but can also inspire the design of architecture. Bionics is a fascinating border area between pure research and practical application: biologists, chemists, physicists, mineralogists, and paleontologists meet up with material scientists, engineers, and architects and transfer their knowledge to architecture and construction. Using numerous practical examples, this richly illustrated introduction traces the process from the understanding of how something functions, to abstraction—for example in computer models—and the construction of initial prototypes, through to fully functional manufacture and production.