Hindwings of insects as concept generator for hingeless foldable shading systems
Hingeless shading systems inspired by nature are increasingly the focus of architectural research.
In contrast to traditional systems, these compliant mechanisms can reduce the amount of
maintenance-intensive parts and can easily be adapted to irregular, doubly curved, facade
geometries. Previous mechanisms rely merely on the reversible material deformation of composite
structures with almost homogeneous material properties. This leads to large actuation forces and an
inherent conflict between the requirements of movement and the capacity to carry external loads. To
enhance the performance of such systems, current re...
Source: Bioinspiration and Biomimetics - December 22, 2017 Category: Science Authors: G Schieber, L Born, P Bergmann, A K örner, A Mader, S Saffarian, O Betz, M Milwich, G T Gresser and J Knippers Source Type: research
Photon management in supramolecular peptide nanomaterials
Self-assembling peptides with covalent pi-electron functionality offer new ways to create
delocalized conduits within protein-based nanomaterials. My group ’s recent research is summarized in
this regard, detailing foundational self-assembly and photophysical characterizations that validate
the electronic couplings existing within the resulting peptidic nanomaterials. Using these initial
studies as a benchmark, ongoing studies to create even more complex photonic energy delocalization
schemes are presented, spanning excitonic and F örster energy transfer to low-bandgap dopant sites
(whereby 46% of the observed pho...
Source: Bioinspiration and Biomimetics - December 22, 2017 Category: Science Authors: John D Tovar Source Type: research
Bio-inspired composites with functionally graded platelets exhibit enhanced stiffness
Unidirectional composites inspired from biological materials such as nacre are composed of stiff
platelets arranged in a staggered manner within a soft matrix. Elaborate analyses have been
conducted on the aforementioned composites and they are found to have excellent mechanical
properties like stiffness, strength and fracture toughness. The superior properties exhibited by
these composites have been proved to be the result of its unique structure. An emerging development
in the field of composite structures is functionally graded composites, whose properties vary
spatially and possess enhanced thermo-mechanical prop...
Source: Bioinspiration and Biomimetics - December 22, 2017 Category: Science Authors: Sanjay Tapse and S Anup Source Type: research
An efficient soil penetration strategy for explorative robots inspired by plant root circumnutation
movements
This paper presents a comparative analysis in terms of energy required by an artificial probe to
penetrate soil implementing two different strategies: a straight penetration movement and a
circumnutation, which is an oscillatory movement performed by plant roots. The role of
circumnutations in plant roots is still debated. We hypothesized that circumnutation movements can
help roots in penetrating soil, and validated our assumption by testing the probe at three distinct
soil densities and using various combinations of circumnutation amplitudes and periods for each
soil. The comparison was based on the total work done...
Source: Bioinspiration and Biomimetics - December 22, 2017 Category: Science Authors: Emanuela Del Dottore, Alessio Mondini, Ali Sadeghi, Virgilio Mattoli and Barbara Mazzolai Source Type: research
The influence of the topography and physico-chemical properties of the cuticle surface on the
wettability and adhesive properties of the elytra of the dung beetle Geotrupes stercorarius
(Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae)
The elytral surface of dung beetles is generally accepted to be self-cleaning due to its
anti-adhesive properties. In this article, the wettability and adhesive properties of elytral
surface (intact and treated with Acetone and Ethanol) of the beetle Geotrupes stercorarius were
characterized. Since these properties are influenced by the surface structure and chemistry, the
micro- and nanostructure of the elytra were observed using scanning electron microscopy and the
surface roughness were estimated with white light interferometery, whereas the water contact angle
and adhesion force of the elytra were evaluated using...
Source: Bioinspiration and Biomimetics - December 13, 2017 Category: Science Authors: Mingxia Sun, Esther Appel, Alexander Kovalev, Elena Gorb, Aiping Liang and Stanislav N Gorb Source Type: research
