Bionics(from Greek. bion- an element of life, literally - living), a science that borders between biology and technology, solving engineering problems based on modeling the structure and life of organisms.
More recently, the science of bionics was born (in 1960), the purpose of which is to help a person to adopt the "secrets" from living nature. Nature has created unusually perfect living mechanisms. Scientists are attracted by the speed and principle of movement of dolphins, whales, squids, spiders, moles, kangaroos, the art of flight of birds and insects, the peculiarities of the organs of vision of flies, frogs, the organs of hearing of jellyfish, the "secrets" of bat echolocators, rattlesnake thermolocators, etc. and so on.
Bionics has found application in such areas as aircraft and shipbuilding, astronautics, mechanical engineering, architecture, navigation instrumentation, mining, etc.
Bionics in construction and industry
Let us consider some concrete achievements of bionics, which have already been realized for practical purposes.
Penguins move by sliding on the snow, pushing off with flippers. The snowmobile was designed on the same principle. at the Gorky Polytechnic Institute. Lying on the snow with a wide bottom, it does not form a rut, does not slip and does not get stuck.
Shipbuilders around the world have long drawn attention to the pear-shaped head of the whale, which is more adapted to moving in the water than the knife-shaped noses of modern ships. Compared to conventional ships, the whale steamer proved to be more economical.
Cone-shaped forms are found in the designs of crowns and trunks of trees, mushrooms. It is this form that coal mining combines have. This is the optimal shape to resist wind loads and gravity. Architects often use cone-shaped structures (Ostankino television tower.)
The structures created by nature are much more perfect than what a person can do so far.
The world of animals living underground is rich and diverse. Earthworms, moles have amazing adaptations with which they build underground passages.
They are of great interest in the creation of underground digging units. For example, an original model has been developed, which, moving underground like a mole, breaks through a tunnel with smooth dense walls.
Bionics took from amphibians the principle of the structure of the hind limb. By embodying this in such an object as flippers.
These are just a small number of examples of how humans apply biological models. But animals also have many other properties that are used, or can be used by humans: ultrasonic vision of bats, echolocation of dolphins (at a distance of 20–30 m, a dolphin accurately indicates the place where a pellet with a diameter of 4 mm fell).
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In the last decade, bionics has received a strong impetus for new developments, as modern technologies make it possible to copy miniature natural structures with unprecedented accuracy. At the same time, modern bionics is largely associated not with the openwork structures of the past, but with the development of new materials that copy natural counterparts, robotics and artificial organs.The concept of bionics is by no means new. For example, as early as 3,000 years ago, the Chinese tried to adopt the method of making silk from insects. But at the end of the twentieth century, bionics gained a second wind, modern technologies make it possible to copy miniature natural structures with unprecedented accuracy. So, a few years ago, scientists were able to analyze the DNA of spiders and create an artificial analogue of the silky web - Kevlar. This review material lists several promising areas of modern bionics and presents the most famous cases of borrowing from nature.
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The main difference between human engineering structures and those created by nature lies in the incredible energy efficiency of the latter. Improving and evolving over millions of years, living organisms have learned to live, move and reproduce using a minimum amount of energy. This phenomenon is based on the unique metabolism of animals and on the optimal exchange of energy between different life forms. Thus, by borrowing engineering solutions from nature, it is possible to significantly increase the energy efficiency of modern technologies.
Natural materials are super-cheap and abundant, and their "quality" is much better than those made by man. So, the material of the deer antler is much stronger than the best examples of ceramic composite that people manage to develop. At the same time, a person uses rather "stupid" energy-intensive processes to obtain certain super-strong substances, and nature makes them in much more intelligent and efficient ways. For this, the surrounding natural substances (sugars, amino acids, salts) are used, but with the use of "know-how" - original design and engineering solutions, ultra-efficient organic catalysts, which in many cases are not yet accessible to human understanding. Bionics, in turn, deals with the study and copying of natural "know-how".
Bionics(English titles - "biomimetics") is a promising scientific and technological direction for borrowing valuable ideas from nature and implementing them in the form of design and design solutions, as well as new information technologies. Item bionics known by various names: for example, in America the term is commonly used "biomimetics" but sometimes they talk about biogenesis. The essence of this promising scientific and technological direction is to borrow valuable ideas from nature and implement them in the form of original design and design solutions, as well as new information technologies. In the last decade, bionics has received a significant impetus to new development. This is due to the fact that modern technologies are moving to the giga- and nanolevel and allow copying miniature natural structures with unprecedented accuracy. Modern bionics is mainly associated with the development of new materials that copy natural analogues, robotics and artificial organs. |
The design of natural structures also cannot be compared with human attempts to construct something that claims to be natural efficiency. The shape of a biological object (for example, a mature tree) is usually created as a result of a long adaptive process, taking into account many years of exposure to both friendly (for example, support from other trees in the forest) and aggressive factors. The processes of growth and development involve interactive regulation at the cellular level. All this together provides incredible durability of the product throughout the entire life cycle. Such adaptability in the process of shaping leads to the creation of a unique adaptive structure, called in bionics intelligent system. At the same time, technologies for creating intelligent systems that interact with the environment and can adapt by changing their properties are not yet available to our industry.
Currently, scientists are trying to design systems with at least minimal adaptability to the environment. For example, modern cars are equipped with numerous sensors that measure the load on individual components and can, for example, automatically change tire pressure. However, developers and science are only at the beginning of this long journey.
The prospects for intelligent systems are fascinating. An ideal intelligent system will be able to independently improve its own design and change its shape in a variety of ways, for example, by adding missing material to certain parts of the structure, changing the chemical composition of individual components, etc. But will people have enough observation and intelligence to learn from nature?
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Bionics in human life
They say that once a century a genius is born on Earth. Leonardo da Vinci was such a genius. The greatest artist, sculptor, mathematician, engineer and anatomist Leonardo da Vinci sought to find the truth, to know and describe it.
“I took nature as my mentor, the teacher of all teachers.”
Why did this great scientist take nature as his teacher?
Life in its most primitive form arose on Earth about 2 billion years ago. Merciless natural selection lasted for millions of centuries, as a result of which the strongest and most perfect survived. Borrow the best from nature to empower man first and suggested Leonardo da Vinci. In 1485, he created a mechanical aircraft - ornithoptel, the principle of which he copied from birds. And although then a person did not manage to learn how to fly, but this laid the foundation for a new science - bionics. Bionics is a symbiosis of biology and technology.
If the history of the Earth - 4.5 billion years - is presented as one day, then it turns out that a reasonable person appeared on the planet less than a minute ago. Literally fractions of a second passed, and he already imagined himself a creator and can already create no worse than nature. Until recently, when inventing something new, people did not realize that it already exists. You just need to see and apply. 99% of scientific discoveries man has spied on nature. Everything that surrounds us has its natural counterpart.
Bionics
(from Βίον - living ) - applied on the application in technical devices and systems of the principles of organization, properties, functions and structures . Simply put, bionics is a connection And . Date of Birth of Bionics: September 13, 1960.Bionics has a symbol: a crossed scalpel, a soldering iron and an integral sign. This union of biology, technology and mathematics allows us to hope that the science of bionics will penetrate where no one has penetrated yet, and will see what no one has seen yet.Man has always dreamed of conquering the sky. But it was available only to birds. And it was the birds that gave people the idea of flight.
Dreams of flying and their actual implementation are very different things. And despite the bold ideas, such as those of Leonardo da Vinci, humanity would remain chained to the earth for many centuries to come. The study of birds, the structure of their wings and tail, led to the fact that man invented the airplane. The structure of the human eye laid the foundation for the photographic lens, the structure of the sunflower inflorescence - for solar panels. Combing out the inflorescences of burdock and the hair of an owl dog after a walk, the famous designer invented Velcro fasteners. Insects gave scientists the idea of helicopters. Fish prompted the creation of submarines. MercedesBenz Corporation has developed a bionic vehicle copied from a tropical bodyfish. Despite its suitcase shape, the machine has extremely low air resistance.
We are confronted every day with bionic inventions without even knowing it. Most often, the principles adopted from nature are found in architecture. For example, in the design of the famous Eiffel Tower lies the structure of the human femur. On the head of the bone there are many reference points, thanks to them, the load on the joint is distributed evenly. This allows the curved femur to support a large body weight. The same reference points can be found at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Its design is considered an architectural benchmark for sustainability.
Another tower, Ostankinskaya, also has a natural analogue. Her slender silhouette is recognizable. The prototype of the Ostankino Tower is a stalk of wheat. Its ability not to break under the weight of the inflorescence formed the basis of the tower.
Architects are increasingly turning to the principles of the functioning of living organisms. To understand how it works, the designer has to study biology. Fish, birds, plants and even the human body become natural prototypes of architectural structures.
Bionics does not stand still. This science creates a real revolution. Ordinary observation, modeling is capable of much.
My future profession is related to mechanical engineering. The engineering industry is the most robotic. For the first time its practical applicationindustrial robotsreceived thanks to the American engineers D. Devol and D. Engelberg in the late 50s and early 60s of the twentieth century. They are used to perform various technological processes in order to increase the efficiency of the enterprise.The design of the robot may contain one or more manipulators, while the manipulator itself may have a different load capacity, positioning accuracy, degree of freedom. When creating an industrial robot, bionic models are actively used. The manipulator of an industrial robot consists of a certain number of movable links (axes) connected to each other. It is arranged on the principle of arthropod limbs. The more axes, the more versatile the design of the robot.
The location and flexibility of the connection of the axes of the robot was carefully made according to the human model (connection of the joints). The axes of the manipulator are controlled by sensors. They are similar to the sense organs and react to light, position in spaceNature still keeps many mysteries, the harmony of its creations has always surprised and will continue to surprise the human world. But the question is: “Will we have time to use the remaining “patents of wildlife”? Given the rate at which plants and animals are disappearing from the face of the earth, and the statistics inexorably states: annually - one species of animals and daily - one species of plants, the question posed sounds very alarming. In this regard, the preservation of rare and endangered species of animals and plants, maintaining the environment in conditions favorable for the life of all life on Earth is an urgent problem and a guarantee of the further development of mankind.
Bionic forms are characterized by complex designs and non-linear forms.
The emergence of the term.
The concept of "bionics" (from the Greek "bios" - life), appeared in the early twentieth century. In a global sense, it denotes a field of scientific knowledge based on the discovery and use of the patterns of construction of natural natural forms to solve technical, technological and artistic problems based on an analysis of the structure, morphology and vital activity of biological organisms. The name was proposed by the American researcher J. Steele at the 1960 symposium in Daytona - "Living prototypes of artificial systems - the key to new technology", during which the emergence of a new, unexplored field of knowledge was consolidated. From this moment on, architects, designers, designers and engineers face a number of tasks aimed at finding new means of shaping.
In the USSR, by the beginning of the 1980s, thanks to the many years of efforts of the team of specialists from the TsNIELAB laboratory, which existed until the beginning of the 1990s, architectural bionics finally took shape as a new direction in architecture. At this time, the final monograph of a large international team of authors and employees of this laboratory was published under the general editorship of Yu. S. Lebedev "Architectural Bionics" (1990)
Thus, the period from the middle of the twentieth century. at the beginning of the XXI century. in architecture was marked by an increase in interest in complex curvilinear forms, the revival, already at a new level, of the concept of "organic architecture", which has its roots in the late XIX - early XX century, to the work of L. Sullivan and F. L. Wright. They believed that the architectural form, as in wildlife, should be functional and develop, as it were, "from the inside out."
The problem of harmonious symbiosis of the architectural and natural environment.
The technocratic development of the last decades has long subjugated the way of life of man. Step by step, mankind has left its ecological habitat on the planet. In fact, we have become residents of an artificial "nature" made of glass, concrete and plastic, the compatibility of which with the life of the natural ecosystem is steadily approaching zero. And the stronger the artificial nature captures the living, the more obvious becomes the need of a person for natural, natural harmony. The most likely way to return humanity "to the bosom of nature", to restore balance between the two worlds is the development of modern bionics.
Cypress skyscraper in Shanghai. Architects: Maria Rosa Cervera & Javier Pioz.
Sydney Opera. Architect: Jørn Utzon.
Rolex Training Center. Architects: Japanese architectural bureau SANAA.
Architectural bionics is an innovative style that takes all the best from nature: reliefs, contours, principles of shaping and interaction with the outside world. All over the world, the ideas of bionic architecture have been successfully implemented by famous architects: the cypress skyscraper in Shanghai, the Sydney Opera House in Australia, the NMB Bank board building in the Netherlands, the Rolex training center and the fruit museum in Japan.
Fruit Museum. Architect: Itsuko Hasegawa.
The interior of the fruit museum.
At all times there has been a continuity of natural forms in the architecture created by man. But, unlike the formalist approach of the past, when the architect simply copied natural forms, modern bionics relies on the functional and fundamental features of living organisms - the ability to self-regulate, photosynthesis, the principle of harmonious coexistence, etc. Bionic architecture involves the creation of houses that are a natural continuation nature that does not come into conflict with it. Further development of bionics involves the development and creation of eco-houses - energy-efficient and comfortable buildings with independent life support systems. The design of such a building provides for a complex of engineering equipment. Environmentally friendly materials and building structures are used in the construction. Ideally, the house of the future is an autonomous self-sustaining system that organically fits into the natural landscape and exists in harmony with nature. Modern architectural bionics has practically merged with the concept of "eco-architecture" and is directly related to ecology.
Form-building, passing from wildlife to architecture.
Every living being on the planet is a perfect working system adapted to the environment. The viability of such systems is the result of the evolution of many millions of years. Revealing the secrets of the device of living organisms, you can get new opportunities in the architecture of buildings.
Formation in living nature is characterized by plasticity and combinatoriality, a variety of both regular geometric shapes and figures - circles, ovals, rhombuses, cubes, triangles, squares, various kinds of polygons, and an infinite number of extremely complex and surprisingly beautiful, light, durable and economical structures. created by combining these elements. Such structures reflect the complexity and multi-stage evolution of the development of living organisms.
The main positions for studying nature from the perspective of architectural bionics are biomaterials science and biotectonics.
The object of study in biomaterials science is various amazing properties of natural structures and their "derivatives" - tissues of animal organisms, stems and leaves of plants, cobweb threads, pumpkin tendrils, butterfly wings, etc.
With biotectonics, everything is more complicated. In this area of knowledge, researchers are interested not so much in the properties of natural materials as in the very principles of the existence of living organisms. The main problems of biotectonics are the creation of new structures based on the principles and methods of action of biostructures in wildlife, the adaptation and growth of flexible tectonic systems based on the adaptation and growth of living organisms.
In architectural and building bionics, much attention is paid to new building technologies. So in the field of development of efficient and waste-free construction technologies, a promising direction is the creation of layered structures. The idea is borrowed from deep-sea molluscs. Their strong shells consist of alternating hard and soft plates. When a hard plate cracks, the deformation is absorbed by the soft layer and the crack does not go any further.
Technologies of architectural bionics.
Here are some of the most common modern directions in the development of bionic buildings as an example.
1. Energy Efficient House - a building with low energy consumption or zero energy consumption from standard sources (Energy Efficient Building).
2. Passive Building (Passive Building) - building with passive thermoregulation (cooling and heating through the use of environmental energy). Such houses provide for the use of energy-saving building materials and structures and there is practically no traditional heating system.
3. Bioclimatic Architecture. One of the trends in hi-tech style. The main principle of bioclimatic architecture is harmony with nature: "... so that a bird, having flown into the office, does not notice that it is inside it." Basically, numerous bioclimatic skyscrapers are known, in which, along with barrier systems, multilayer glazing (double skin technology) is actively used to provide sound insulation and microclimate support, coupled with ventilation.
4. Smart House (Intellectual Building) - a building in which, with the help of computer technology and automation, the flow of light and heat in the premises and enclosing structures is optimized.
5. Healthy Building - a building in which, along with the use of energy-saving technologies and alternative energy sources, natural building materials (mixtures of earth and clay, wood, stone, sand, etc.) are a priority. Technologies " healthy" houses include air purification systems from harmful fumes, gases, radioactive substances, etc.
The history of the use of architectural forms in architectural practice.
Architectural bionics did not arise by chance. It was the result of previous experience of using in one form or another (most often associative and imitative) certain properties or characteristics of wildlife forms in architecture - for example, in the hypostyle halls of Egyptian temples in Luxor and Karnak, capitals and columns of ancient orders, Gothic interiors. cathedrals, etc.
The columns of the hypostyle hall of the temple at Edfu.
Bionic architecture often includes buildings and architectural complexes that organically fit into the natural landscape, being, as it were, its continuation. For example, the buildings of the modern Swiss architect Peter Zumthor can be called such. Along with natural building materials, he works with already existing natural elements - mountains, hills, lawns, trees, practically without modifying them. Its structures seem to grow out of the ground, and, sometimes, merge so much with the surrounding nature that they can not be immediately detected. So, for example, thermal baths in Switzerland from the outside seem like just a green area.
Baths in Wals. Architect: Peter Zumthor.
From the point of view of one of the concepts of bionics - the image of an eco-house - even village houses familiar to us can be attributed to bionic architecture. They are made of natural materials, and the structures of rural settlements have always been harmoniously inscribed in the surrounding landscape (the upper point of the village is a church, the lowland is residential buildings, etc.)
Dome of Florence Cathedral. Architect: Filippo Brunelleschi.
The emergence of this area in the history of architecture is always associated with some kind of technical innovation: for example, the architect of the Italian Renaissance F. Brunelleschi took an egg shell as a prototype for constructing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, and Leonardo da Vinci copied the forms of wildlife when depicting and designing construction, military and even aircraft. It is generally accepted that the first who began to study the mechanics of the flight of living models "from bionic positions" was Leonardo da Vinci, who tried to develop an aircraft with a flapping wing (ornithopter).
Gallery in Park Guell. Architect: Antonio Gaudi.
Portal of the Passion of Christ in the Sagrada Familia.
Advances in construction technology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. gave rise to new technical possibilities for interpreting wildlife architecture. This was reflected in the works of many architects, among whom, of course, Antonio Gaudi stands out - the initiator of the widespread use of bioforms in the architecture of the 20th century. The residential buildings designed and built by A. Gaudi, the Güell Monastery, the famous Sagrada Familia (Sagrada Familia, 170 m high) in Barcelona still remain unsurpassed architectural masterpieces and, at the same time, the most talented and characteristic example of the assimilation of architectural natural forms -- their application and development.
Attic ceiling Casa Mila. Architect: Antonio Gaudi.
Arched vault of the gallery in Casa Batlló. Architect: Antonio Gaudi.
A. Gaudi believed that in architecture, as in nature, there is no place for copying. As a result, his structures are striking in their complexity - you will not find two identical parts in his buildings. Its columns depict palm trunks with bark and leaves, stair handrails imitate curling plant stems, vaulted ceilings reproduce tree crowns. In his creations, Gaudi used parabolic arches, hyper-spirals, inclined columns, etc., creating an architecture whose geometry surpassed the architectural imaginations of both architects and engineers. One of the first A. Gaudi also used the biomorphological constructive properties of a spatially curved form, which he embodied in the form of a hyperbolic paraboloid of a small flight of brick stairs. At the same time, Gaudí did not just copy natural objects, but creatively interpreted natural forms, modifying proportions and scale rhythmic characteristics.
Despite the fact that the semantic range of protobionic buildings looks quite impressive and justified, some experts consider as architectural bionics only those buildings that not only repeat natural forms or are created from natural materials, but contain the structures and principles of wildlife in their designs.
Construction of the Eiffel Tower. Engineer: Gustave Eiffel.
Bridge project. Architect: Paolo Soleri.
These scientists would rather call protobionics such buildings as the 300-meter Eiffel Tower of bridge engineer A. G. Eiffel, which exactly repeats the structure of the human tibia, the bridge project of architect P. Soleri, reminiscent of a rolled leaf of cereal and developed according to the principle of redistribution of loads in plant stems, etc.
Cycling track in Krylatskoe. Architects: N. I. Voronina and A. G. Ospennikov.
In Russia, the laws of wildlife were also borrowed to create some architectural objects of the “pre-perestroika” period. Examples include the Ostankino radio and television tower in Moscow, Olympic venues - a cycle track in Krylatskoye, membrane coverings of an indoor stadium on Prospekt Mira and a universal sports and entertainment hall in Leningrad, a restaurant in Primorsky Park in Baku and its link in Frunze - the Bermet restaurant and others
Among the names of modern architects working in the direction of architectural bionics, Norman Foster (http://www.fosterandpartners.com/Projects/ByType/Default.aspx), Santiago Calatrava (http://www.calatrava.com/#/Selected %20works/Architecture?mode=english), Nicholas Grimshaw (http://grimshaw-architects.com/sectors/), Ken Young (http://www.trhamzahyeang.com/project/main.html), Vincent Kalebo ( http://vincent.callebaut.org/projets-groupe-tout.htm l) etc.
If any aspect of bionics interests you, write to us and we will tell you more about it!
Architectural bureau "Intera".