Biomimicry

Nature’s Design Principles

Curt McNamara, P.E.
c.mcnamara@ieee.org

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
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 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
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 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

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 Tree Diagram

March 26, 2008 1

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 Radiant Thinking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map

March 26, 2008 1

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 Biomimicry Process

March 26, 2008 1

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 Using the problem situation
 What characterizes the problem?
 Connections
 Boundary
 Permeability
 Behavior over time
 Energy / information
 Exchange
 Storage
 Capture

March 26, 2008 1

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 Energy / Information

March 26, 2008 2

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 Boundary

March 26, 2008 2

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 Exchange

Choose your level

March 26, 2008 2
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 Phase Transition

March 26, 2008 2

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 Behaviour over time

Growth or cycles
March 26, 2008 2
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 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
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 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
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