BIE-3123 – Biomimetics Course Syllabus

Instructor: Assist. Prof. İlker Polatoğlu

Office No: 0 236 201 24 53

e-mail: ilker.polatoglu@cbu.edu.tr

Web Site: ilkerpolatoglu.cbu.edu.tr

Lecture Hours : Tuesdays: starts at 13.15

Course Grading:

Midterm: %30 + [Presentation + Quizzes]: %30 + Final:

%40

Resources

✓Several books on the subject

Resources

✓Lecture notes, presentations, audio/video files from different sources

✓Scientific papers

http://www.mdpi.com/journal/biomimetics

1 Introduction, fundamental definitions, historical development of biomimicry

2 Technological Aspects From Learning Nature

3 Natural mechanisms and their biomimetic applications

4 Natural mechanisms and their biomimetic applications

5 Biomimetic surfaces, biomaterials, biocompatible materials

6 Octember 29 (national holiday)

7 Biologically inspired smart materials, sensors, robots.

8 Midterm exams

9 Midterm exams

10 Biomimicry in Engineering Design

11 Superhydrophobicity, Learn from the Lotus Leaf

12 Micro Swimming Robots Based on Small Aquatic Creatures

13 Project presentations

14 Project presentations

15 Project presentations

Humans are clever, but without intending to, we have created

massive sustainability problems for future generations.

Fortunately, solutions to these global challenges are all around us.

Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable

solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-

tested patterns and strategies. The goal is to create products,

processes, and policies—new ways of living—that are well-

adapted to life on earth over the long haul.

The core idea is that nature has already solved many of the

problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes

are the consummate engineers. After billions of years of research

and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is

the secret to survival.

The Concept of Biomimetic

“I think the biggest innovations of the 21st

century will be at the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning.”

Steve Jobs

Relevant Terminology

Biomimetics or Biomimicry: Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s patterns and strategies.

In another words,Biomimicry is innovation inspired by creation(not nature, as the nature can not create itself).Biomimetics is an interdisciplinary field in which principles from engineering, chemistry and biology are applied to the synthesis of materials, synthetic systems or machines that have functions thatmimic biological processes.

Other descriptions for biomimetic

- Nature-inspired , bio-inspired design

Which systems are biomimetic?

A biomimetic system means something that resembles a system

found in Nature.

For instance, echolocation that some animals use for navigating in

dark has been turned into technology of sonar commonly used, for

instance, in naval navigation. The materials and technology to

create and detect the signals are surely different in the animals and

in ships, but the overall action is the same. Thus, the sonar is a

biomimetic system, even though the materials related to it are not.

Which materials are biomimetic?

Should all the materials forming of a certain biomimetic system

be considered as biomimetic materials? Not necessarily.

Only when the material of question is somehow acting similarly

to a biological material in the same context, we can talk about a

biomimetic material.

Nanoclay/polymer nanocomposite Walther et al. have prepareda material from polymer-coated nanoclay platelets by assemblinga layered structure (Fig. 1) of them. The final structure of thematerial resembles the structure of nacre, mother of pearl. Nacreconsists of 95 % hard aragonite platelets, interfaced by softorganic matrix material, representing only 5 % of the material’stotal weight.The special composition and structure of nacre leads toextraordinary toughening of the material and is the feature thatthis biomimetic material attempts to

capture.

Figure 1. PVA-coated nanoclay platelets are assembled by solution-based methods.

Synthetic composites often lack toughness and are thus quite

brittle. Here, biomimetics is applied to increase the toughness of

the nanocomposite by using the same strategy that Nature has

done in creating the natural model material. The chemistry or

the size scale of the components is not the same as in nacre,

but still the materials can be regarded biomimetic. After this,

one might think that simply mixing a chosen polymer with

nanoclay would always form a biomimetic composite. This is not

exactly true because the great properties of the natural

composites are due to the ordered structure and controlled

interactions in the materials and not just the right mixture.

Often, it is the structure that makes materials biomimetic.

It is good to remember that the bio-based materials are be

considered biomimetic, if they are not mimicking any

biological material. For instance, paper is not biomimetic

even though it is based on wood and is produced by

biosynthesis. Also the components of biomimetic systems

may not be regarded as biomimetic materials as such

Which materials are not biomimetic?

https://biomimicry.org/

https://biomimicry.org/what-is-biomimicry/

Biomimetics is the attempt to learn from nature; it deals with

the development of innovations on the basis of investigation of

natural, evolutionarily optimized biological structures, functions,

processes, and systems

Definition

Elementary to every definition is, in our opinion, a composition of

the three elements that are essential in characterizing

biomimetics today:

(1) New (technical) possibilities for (2) innovations solving societal

problems and/ or fulfilling demands and (3) “learning from living

nature,” or more precisely: learning, in the broadest sense, from

“biological research.

Three strands of development in biomimetics

a differentiation between the three main developmental

biomimetics strands can be made. The first, “functional

morphological”, strand is the oldest and dedicated above

all to the form/structure-function relationships. The second

strand focuses more on the biological forms of signal and

information processing and introduced successful technical

implementations; particularly in the areas of biocybernetics,

sensorics, and robotics. The third and youngest strand of

development in biomimetics is a result of progress in the area

of nanotechnology and draws on, among other areas,

molecular self-organisation processes.

Three levels of learning from nature

In addition to the three strands in the development dynamic, the core of the

biomimetic basic idea can also be broken down further. We distinguish between

three levels of “learning from nature,” where the question arises as to the

conceptual source of the respective biomimetic knowledge transfer processes. In

the case of “learning from nature’s findings,” it is the structures and mechanisms

of living systems that are found in nature and described in biology that are used

as models for technical products and processes. At the second level, it is neither

the findings nor the results of evolution but rather the evolutionary process itself

that is the object and starting point of the knowledge transfer processes in

biomimetics (evolutionary optimisation, genetic algorithms). There is also an

effort underway in biomimetics to distill out the general principles of the

evolutionary success and the structure and functionality of natural systems (for

example, resource efficiency, opportunism and adaptability); this can be

considered the third level of learning from nature.