Biomimicry
Nature’s Design Principles
Curt McNamara, P.E.
[email protected] Sustainable Building
ASHRAE Conference
March 26, 2008
March 26, 2008 1
What Is Biomimicry?
Emulating Natures Designs
Mimicking biology
Janine Benyus
March 26, 2008 2
What Is Biomimicry?
Nature as model
Elegant solutions exist
March 26, 2008 3
What Is Biomimicry?
Nature as model
The lotus effect (SM)
http://www.stocorp.com/allweb.nsf/lotusanpage
March 26, 2008 4
What Is Biomimicry?
Nature as mentor
Use solar energy, water, and carbon
March 26, 2008 5
What Is Biomimicry?
Nature as measure
How do we compare to nature?
“Life is eternally regenerative”
Bucky Fuller
March 26, 2008 6
What Is The Biomimetic
Advantage?
Energy
Human materials processing: heat, beat and treat
Bauxite to aluminum to can
Earth’s materials processing: self assemble
Sea shell, tooth enamel, snow flake
March 26, 2008 7
What Is The Biomimetic
Advantage?
Materials
How much does your house weigh?
Hypercar
Rocky Mountain Institute
March 26, 2008 8
What Is The Biomimetic
Advantage?
Structure
Doing more with less
Adapting to environment http://www.worldcarfans.com/2050607.004
March 26, 2008 9
Design Principles for Biomimicry
Energy Economics
Store when ample
Honeycomb
Transform quality
Sunlight >> algae
Algae >> fish
Sunlight >> leaf
Embodied energy
March 26, 2008 1
0
Design Principles for Biomimicry
Evaporation drives respiration
Water evaporating at top of tree pulls 2000 gallons/day
Filter the flow
Fit the shape to the particle
Alveoli <> oxygen
Passive pumping
Maximize surface area
Tree = 5000 sq. ft.
Lung = 1000 sq. ft.
Adapt to environment
Fold in wind
Fertilize in fall
Regenerate in spring
Make use of all energy
Photon pathways
March 26, 2008 1
1
Design Principles for Biomimicry
Emergence
Bee hive
Mud on top of mud
Food trails
Repeated scents build
Slime mold
Natural clocks
Environment triggers change
Flying in flocks
Followers gain advantage
Leaders trade off
Ecological succession
Ecological niches
March 26, 2008 1
2
Building biomimicry
The Eastgate Building in Harare,
Zimbabwe, biomimetically modelled on a
termite mound:
"The building uses less than 10 percent of
the energy of a conventional building its
size. These efficiencies translated directly
to the bottom line: The Eastgate's owners
saved $3.5 million on a $36 million
building because an air-conditioning
plant didn't have to be imported. These
savings were also realized by tennants:
rents are 20 percent lower than in a new
building next door. ... greater value may
be found by studying solutions from those
niches (ecological and economic) where
resources are more constrained than the
ones you inhabit. Don't study the oasis -
study the desert."Andrew Zolli
http://www.insecta-inspecta.com/termites/macrotermes/index.html
http://archnet.org/library/images/thumbnails.tcl?location_id=3167
Harare's Eastgate Building, Alex
Steffen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastgate_Centre,_Harare
worldchanging.com
March 26, 2008 1
3
Design Principles for Biomimicry
Waste = Food
Compost, close the loop
Evolve solutions: Recombination
Pieces make a new whole
Be here now
All solutions are local
Cooperate not compete
Open source innovation
Fill every niche
Use all energies
Follow the energy: Use the flow
Capture rain, wind, sun
Optimize the system rather than the component
The whole is greater than the parts
Consider the cell – boundary, energy source and transformation, temperature
and pressure control, signaling.
Inspired by Jeremi Faludi (worldchanging.org)
Credits: Janine Benyus, Michael Braungart and William McDonough, Kevin
Kelly, Steven Vogel, D'Arcy Thompson, Buckminster Fuller, Julian Vincent,
March 26, 2008 and Dee Hock, Curt McNamara 1
4
Life …
Builds from the bottom up
Needs an inside and an outside
A few themes: many variations
Organizes with information
Information builds variety
Creates with mistakes
Works in cycles
Recycles everything it uses
Maintains itself by turn-over
Optimizes rather than maximizes
Opportunistic
Competes within cooperation
Interconnected and interdependent
Way Life Works: Hoagland and Dodson (ISBN 0812928881)
March 26, 2008 1
5
Tree Diagram
March 26, 2008 1
6
Radiant Thinking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
March 26, 2008 1
7
Biomimicry Process
March 26, 2008 1
8
Using the problem situation
What characterizes the problem?
Connections
Boundary
Permeability
Behavior over time
Energy / information
Exchange
Storage
Capture
March 26, 2008 1
9
Energy / Information
March 26, 2008 2
0
Boundary
March 26, 2008 2
1
Exchange
Choose your level
March 26, 2008 2
2
Phase Transition
March 26, 2008 2
3
Behaviour over time
Growth or cycles
March 26, 2008 2
4
Additional Resources
Numerous web resources:
http://Worldchanging.com
http://Thinkcycle.org
http://Biomimicry.net
http://database.biomimicry.org/
http://triz-journal.com
http://moea.state.mn.us/p2/design.cfm
http://online.mcad.edu
http://www.bath.ac.uk/mech-eng/biomimetics/home.htm
March 26, 2008 2
5
Engineering Key Principles …
Vogel's mechanical-engineering-specific principles (summarized):
Nature's factories produce things much larger, not smaller, than themselves.
We use metals, nature never does
Nature makes gradual transitions in structures (curves, density gradients,
etc.) rather than sharp corners.
We make things out of many components, each of which is homogeneous;
nature makes things out of fewer components but they vary internally.
We design for stiffness, nature designs for strength and toughness.
Our mechanisms have rigid pieces moving on sliding contacts, nature
bends/twists/stretches.
Nature often uses diffusion, surface tension, and laminar flow; we often use
gravity, thermal conductivity, and turbulence.
Our engines are mostly rotary or expansive, nature's are mostly sliding or
contracting.
Nature's engines are isothermal.
Nature mostly stores mechanical work as elastic energy, sometimes as
gravitational potential energy.
Jeremi Faludi, worldchanging.org
March 26, 2008 2
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