Bionics – biology as a model for technology

It fastens jackets, shoes and bags. It is practical, maybe even indispensable, and it is in fact the first bionic product to become world famous. We are talking about Velcro®. In the mid 1950s, Belgium scientists developed Velcro® from the seeds of the avens plant. Despite the popularity of the Velcro® fastener and although bionics is currently a hot topic, only insiders really seem to understand what “bionics” is all about. This scientific discipline takes findings and observations from biological research and transfers them to technical applications.

“Bionics” is a neologism, derived from the words “biology” and “mechanics”, although the more commonly recognised term is biomimetics, which is derived from the English words “biology” and “mimesis” (imitation). Within the next three years, the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) will provide funding of €60 million to bionics projects. The state of Baden-Württemberg has just decided to extend the funding period of the biomimetics competence network for another two years. Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg is founding projects either.

The process of bionic development is a continuous procedure, without specifically defined areas where the biologist’s work ends and the engineer’s work begins. Using the giant reed (above) and the winter horsetail (below) as models, bionically inspired products such as the technical blade of grass were developed. (Figure: Plant Biomechanics Group Freiburg)

Bionics does not usually involve the direct transfer of an observation in nature to the development of a product, but rather it involves the creative implementation of biological concepts into technological products. Thomas Speck, Professor of Functional Morphology and Head of the Botanical Gardens at Freiburg University, likes to describe this process as “a ‘re-invention’ inspired by nature, usually going through several steps of abstraction and modification“. Bionics is considered to be an unusually strong interdisciplinary field of research, in which biologists, chemists, physicists, and engineers in particular join forces to conduct experiments and research. Experience shows that it is of great importance for biologists and engineers to work closely together throughout the entire process of development from the biological model to the bionically inspired market-ready product. “This is the only way we can guarantee the efficient transfer of research results to technical products along the entire value-added chain“, said the scientist from Freiburg (see also Freiburg BioRegion’s interview with Prof. Speck about the potential, innovative strength and the limits of bionics).

In many cases, it is not a single plant or a certain animal that inspires the bionics people in their work, but rather several models influence the development of a bionic product. For example, the winter horsetail Equisetum hyemale as well as the giant reed Arundo donax played key roles in the development of the “technical blade of grass“, a cooperation between the Plant Biomechanics Group Freiburg and the Institute of Textile Technology and Process Engineering Denkendorf (ITV) Denkendorf. But the engineers from the ITV Denkendorf are not only collaborating with the scientists from Freiburg; they are also working on developing textiles in collaboration with the “Functional Morphology and Biomimetics“ group at Tübingen University headed by Dr. Anita Roth-Nebelsick. These textiles will function like plant stomata, automatically adapting their wicking ability to the environmental micro-climate (see STERN BioRegion’s article).

The giant reed was one of the models for the mechanical blade of grass . (Photo: T. Speck)

All three of the aforementioned research groups and institutions are partners in the biomimetics competence network, which for the last three years has been financed and supported by the Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts of the state of Baden-Württemberg. New members of the competence network are Prof. Claus Mattheck and his research group at the Research Centre in Karlsruhe and Dr. Stanislaw Gorb, head of the “Evolutionary Biomaterials Group“ group at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart. Mattheck uses the growth of trees as his model to minimize any notch stress when constructing technical devices. He uses bones to get ideas for constructing optimised shapes using as little material as possible (see the Rhine-Neckar Triangle BioRegion’s article).

Gorb, a biologist, is studying why flies, spiders and geckos are able to walk up glass without falling off. The pads of these animals are covered with the finest hairs which possess extremely high adhesive forces. Guided by this model, the scientists in Stuttgart are developing technical surfaces that have the same adhesive properties (see STERN BioRegion’s article).

The “Smart Materials Using Nature as a Model” research project has been part of the Baden-Württemberg competence network right from the beginning. This project aims to develop and produce self-repairing and self-adapting materials. Collaboration partners are the Plant Biomechanics Group Freiburg and the Swiss company, prospective concepts ag. In Summer 2005, the partners submitted a patent for a self-repairing membrane coating, based on the tear-repair mechanism of the pipevine. They were able to file the patent application after only three years of research (see Freiburg BioRegion’s article).

Such short periods of development are not really that common in the field of bionics. The aforementioned bionics researchers succeeded in gaining their results in such a short time as a result of concentrating all their efforts on a specific industry requirement. If the researchers focused on developing a technical product from a biological model this would generally take five to ten years.

Not only is much patience required for research and construction work, but some scientists also have to invest a great deal of time trying to convince their own colleagues of the usefulness of bionic principles – as was the case with the lotus effect. Wilhelm Barthlott, a botanist who discovered the self-cleansing ability of many plants, is a perfect example. He had to combat the scepticism of his colleagues for two years before he was finally able to publish his findings in a scientific journal. Many people found it difficult to believe that a rough surface cleanses itself more easily than a smooth surface. But nowadays the physical-chemical basis of the lotus effect is well known. Since the mid-90s, dirt-repelling, self-cleansing varnishes, paints and other surface materials are being produced in collaboration with different industrial partners.

kb – 13th Dec. 2005
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