Bionics

Bionics

The term "bionics" was coined in 1958 by J. E. STEELE (1924-2009). Bionics describes a branch of science from cybernetics. Living systems have developed their own problem solutions. These are copied or copied and realized or simulated in technical systems constructed by experts. Biology is revolutionizing technology! Machines are transformed into organic systems by new, thought-provoking materials: aircraft are suddenly able to autonomously alter their wing profile, ships can move smoothly like a fish and drive with fin drive, and bridges that have cracks can heal themselves.

The applications extend to all industries, eg. B. on medical technology, design, architecture, information technology, space technology, shipbuilding, railway and automotive. In addition, bionics can help to find ecological solutions at a time when modern technology often reaches environmentally sound limits.

The term bionics was coined in 1958 at a congress in Dayton, Ohio by American Air Force Major J. E. STEELE (1924-2009). He should clarify the "learning from nature for technology". Or, as the German pioneer of bionics, WERNER NACHTIGALL (* 1934), put it: Learning from nature for an independent technical design.

Although the term was new, it only referred to a tried and tested method for centuries. Around the year 1500, the all-rounder LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519) designed a series of flying machines modeled on bird wings and the rotating seeds of the maple tree. However, until a person with wing-like constructions actually rose in the air, it would take around 400 years, because DA VINCI's apparatus was not airworthy. Too much they were still based on a mere imitation of the natural model without consideration of the fundamental laws of physics.

The legend of IKARUS

Had IKARUS, the "flying man" of Greek mythology, known the most important principles of today's bionics, he might not have crashed. Legend has it that his wings, made of feathers and wax, designed exactly on the model of the bird's wing, melted because he came too close to the sun and caused him to fall. And in reality, for many centuries, man's attempts to copy nature were usually doomed to failure. Although there are exceptions such as the plastic sponge or Velcro, which are based on a purely morphological imitation - but they are not the rule.

For WERNER NACHTIGALL, the most renowned German bionic artist, the reason for this is clear: "Nature does not provide any blueprints for the technology. The opinion that one merely needs to copy nature leads to a dead end. "Similarly, the Englishman JULIAN VINCENT puts it this way:" An exact copy of nature would be unwise, because nature is not only incredibly complex, in it also completely different Conditions."

Bionics therefore face the challenge of first understanding which physical principles are behind a successful natural design. If you want to fly like a bird, you first have to analyze why the bird can fly at all. Only then can the knowledge gained be converted into a technical structure. WERNER NACHTIGALL emphasizes: "It is crucial that we approach nature with the know-how of technology and physics and ask the right questions."

And questions about nature are currently booming: not only the classic engineering disciplines such as aircraft and shipbuilding or the architects are looking for suggestions and impulses there, also materials scientists, climate technicians and computer scientists are increasingly oriented to natural role models. Because the constructions of nature are above all one thing: effective with maximum energy and material utilization. In the age of dwindling resources and the threat of climate change, it is above all these characteristics that make nature as a model more interesting than ever.

Bionics describes a branch of science devoted to the comparative analysis of biological and technical systems. It therefore deals with the possibilities of applying biological principles of operation in technology. Technical systems can experience an increase in quality and an extension in general through the results of this science. Of particular interest are biomechanical problems as well as principles of message processing and transmission, and ultimately the energy conversion mechanisms of autotrophic organisms.

Living systems are copied their specially developed solutions to problems and then realized or simulated in resulting constructed technical systems. There are quite a few examples, such as the roofing constructions based on the construction principle of snail shells or the microstructures of diatoms and radiolarians.

Bionics is a science branch of the future that offers scientists countless applications. Researchers are trying to harness the "ways of nature" for economic use in a wide variety of segments. These ingenious technical solutions, modeled on nature, are a promising approach to using limited resources more sparingly and thus ultimately to protect the environment or less burden.

Nature has astonishing solutions for a wide variety of industrial and technical problems. Through her evolutionary inventions of optimized "inventions" she offers design principles of very high efficiency.

Analogies of nature and technology

But even independently, nature and engineers have often developed deceptively similar structures. These analogies are based on the fact that - as in nature itself - certain problems have to be solved under the same or similar conditions.

In the course of millions of years, evolution has ensured that only those constructions and methods survive that can do with a minimum of energy and material. Organisms that developed the most effective methods of food production, reproduction, or locomotion had an advantage over the less effectively "operating" competition and prevailed over the long term.

The process in technology is not much different: inventions and developments are generally accepted by the industry or the free market only if they are connected with the lowest possible costs for energy, production or material. As a result, architects and engineers often reproduced the energy-saving or material-saving design principles of nature without being aware of it - they reinvented the wheel.

One of the best known examples is the roof of the Munich Olympic Stadium, built in 1972 by the architect FREI OTTO (* 1925). The glass and steel construction of the roof is suspended freely on poles; the different curvature of the roof surface gives it despite the light and airy acting great strength. Only later did the engineers realize that nature had already produced a similar construction - the network of dangling spiders suspended between grasses. As with the roof of the stadium, the thin threads of the net only have to withstand the tensile loads, the pressure loads are taken over by the "masts" of the blades of grass.

Even with other lightweight construction methods, the architects seem to have taken visual instruction in nature. Many older railway bridges, such as the bridge over the Scottish Firth of Forth, were constructed in steel construction. Instead of solid stone, braced iron girders bear the weight here. Amazingly, this type of bracing resembles the stiffening inside of many hollow bird bones, especially the pelvis of the ratites. Both the bridge and the basin are designed to withstand high loads with a minimum of material - hence the analogy of form.

Such convergences to nature can be found not only in the architecture, but also in almost every household: So the annular ribs of the vacuum cleaner hose are no coincidence. Their job is to keep the hose open even when it is bent heavily. A normal tube with no ribs bends easily in such a case, thus closing the opening in the interior. In the same way, tracheal insects or aqueducts in the wood are stabilized in nature.

Phenomena of bionics

Conceptions from science fiction novels or films seem to be gradually becoming reality. Thus, certain homes are already able to control their temperature and move in an earthquake so that they do not collapse. Or the newly developed aircraft, which automatically make their wing profile thicker or thinner for take-off and landing, as a result of which the control flaps have become superfluous. Finally, one could mention the ships, which instead of the conventional screws have fin-like constructions that actually allow a freighter to become a racing ship.

Many scientists are enthusiastically working on these living-organic, thought-provoking materials known as "smarties" by "insiders." The model for all these developments is the living nature. Just as animals and humans are able to pass on external stimuli via nerve pathways to the brain, process them there or react with muscle movements to changes in their environment, so too dead materials should behave in the future. It is also intended to create immune systems that are able to heal or repair objects in the event of injury or damage. You need three different materials for this:

     1-) Memory metals,

     2-) Electricity generating crystals ("piezoelectric materials"),

     3-) Deformable gels.

These materials act as artificial sensory organs and muscles, so to speak, and when they are networked with an electron brain, they become, in a sense, alive.

1. The memory metals

The simplest form of so-called memory metals can be found in automatic fuses, which protect the circuits from overload. Two different metals, which expand to different degrees, are combined to form a bimetal (alloy). While at normal room temperature the strip is straight so that the current can flow, it will heat up when there is excessive current flow and one metal will expand more than the other: the strip will begin to curve and the current will be cut off.

A straight wire of nitinol (nickel-titanium alloy) is heated first, then turned into a spiral and even bent into a paperclip. When cooling, the wire stretches again. If it is heated again, it forms into a clamp, the atoms, so to speak, remember the lattice structure "programmed in when heat is applied" and jump back into it. The well-known steel empire Krupp very quickly used the "capabilities of this memory metal". Pipes were assembled in this way and windows could be opened and closed with this mechanism. Yes, even new types of propulsion could be discovered and realized with the help of these memory metals. Finally, memory metals were used in high-tech areas:

     * At 115 ° C, satellite satellites unlock the solar paddles in this way, saving technicians vulnerable and complicated controls;

     * Robots can use this effect to use their articulated and motorless gripper hand;

     * In Japanese research laboratories, there are cars where dents can be blown out with a hair dryer.

2. The piezoelectric materials

As early as 1880, it was discovered that the quartz crystals contained in the sand could turn into small power plants when squeezed together. In the normal state, absolute symmetry prevails in the corresponding crystal lattice of the quartz. All components are in their normal place. However, the charges shift immediately as soon as slight deformation has occurred due to pressure or tension. The surfaces charge electrically opposite each other, an electrical voltage is generated. Lighters spray their sparks this way.

The crystals can also perform a dual function: their current-donating property is reversed. With the addition of electricity, there is a change in volume, this effect is achieved with vibrating loudspeaker membranes of telephone handsets. The piezoelectric substances or "piezos" are thus at the same time sensory organ and muscle: a mechanical impact from the outside is converted into a current surge and they are deformed by an added current impulse. Today instead of quartz ceramics are used. While these piezos can only change their shape from 1% instead of 10% compared to the memory metals, they are extremely fast: in one thousandth of a second, they can flex their biceps many hundreds of times, while the mentioned robot hand for one such power act whole second needed.

3. Deformable gels

The deformable gels are, for. For example, polymers consisting of long molecular chains. Researchers can manipulate these chains, change the temperature, or create electrical or magnetic fields. Contained solvent is absorbed or the chains are literally tangled together. Switching between liquid and solid is nothing special, or you let the substances gel, a rhythmically twitching muscle dances around in alternating electric fields.

Organic valves or filters or artificial hearts are created in this way, shock absorbers can work this way (soft on hard gravel roads, hard on a highway).

It was not until the 1970s that the researchers realized that they had to gather their already acquired knowledge: the cooperation of two hitherto very opposite directions was born: biology and technology finally began to merge.

Today, bionics has become a very exciting field of activity: in the meantime, there are houses that cuddle warmly in the cold and are airy and fresh in the heat. How does this work?

There are model houses in the USA, in Japan and also in Germany. The walls or one should rather say "skins" are made of a sandwich glass, in the middle of which are polymers. The greater the heat of the sun that hits the glass, the more these polymers become entangled. They form a milky mass that repels the sun's rays and - hocus pocus - the windows open by themselves. When it gets cooler again outside, the glass surfaces become transparent again and suck the heat of the sun inside the house. At the same time memory metals on the windows are also active: circlips extend and return springs ensure that the windows are closed again.

Even in the wallpaper, these lovable brownies are at work: they contain innumerable small piezoelectric crystals, which transform the paper on the wall, so to speak, into speakers: One could say that the inhabitants feel like a concert hall when listening to music. Sound waves entering from the outside are sent to sound waves that are equally strong but mirror-inverted so that they cancel each other out. So, if the room is right on the highway, the "Piezo wallpaper" still provides heavenly silence.

The skeleton of these model houses also has extraordinary capabilities: Damage repairs itself. The well-tried concrete has always been very popular with builders because of its light and effortless workmanship. Unfortunately, his susceptibility to corrosion has never really gotten him up in safety fanatics. It seems that remediation has now become obsolete for humans: when pouring the concrete, fine tube systems are now drawn into the masonry, which contain two different active ingredients: calcium nitrate and a resinous solution. The American architect CAROLINE DRY is the inventor of this measure: There is a double fuse. When de-icing salt seeps into the concrete, the hoses are dissolved and the calcium nitrate is released, acting as a shield against the salt. If there are cracks in the concrete structure, the resin reservoirs break open and close the "wound" with the resin that is released. Concrete bridges also benefit from this invention. The Schießbergstraße bridge in Leverkusen can therefore call for help if it is overloaded.

The Japanese are probably the furthest in the development of "intelligent buildings". Many years ago, they began building houses whose skeletons can stretch, bend or turn to counter the frequent earthquake.