Biomimetics: nature as a model

2007/03/04 Rementeria Argote, Nagore - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Bioteknologia
• Diseinua
• Materialak
• Patenteak/Asmakizunak
• Teknologia

The whiteness of the beetle captivated researchers, who have considered it a model of fine and white coatings.

P. Vukusic, University of Exeter

The white layer covering the beetle is ten times thinner than a hair. To make a comparison, in industrial coatings, the white color is obtained when the layer needs twice the thickness of the beetle coating.

As the key to the whiteness of the beetle is on the surface of the shell. The beetle shell, seen by electron microscope, is formed by long and flattened scales, with very random three-dimensional structures. Therefore, this structure will serve as an example to achieve softer and thinner coatings.

Da Vinci on time

It is not the first time that man takes nature as a model. Remember Leonardo Da Vinci's flight programs, which built bird-like structures. Unfortunately, Leonardo was not very successful.

Several birds have fixed themselves on the wings to design a plane that changes the appearance of the wings.

Five centuries after those first attempts, technological resources have greatly improved. And they discover that Leonardo was not so wrong, the idea was very good, but he had it before time. At present there is more than one project that takes the bird as a model.

For example, Penn State University works with the idea of a plane that changes the appearance of wings based on speed. It has been taken into account that birds have apparent wings depending on the speed of flight and the length of flights. The design of the wings of the plane has been based on the appearance of these wings.

This plane is not yet executed, it is a project. But someone knows that one day it will be a beneficial patent, like velcro®, for example.

Velcroa® is the best-known and most widely used patent of the natural model. They say the first idea of the velcro® that Swiss engineer George de Mestral had after an excursion with his dog. During the tour, the dog and his pants were glued with a hard grass that he could not remove. In his eagerness to discover the secret of such hard adherence, he looked at the grass with a microscope and discovered that he had hooked hairs. Well, taking this bark as a reference, it was one of the most used enclosures today.

One of the most successful inventions has been velcro®.

Apparently, at first few took into account the invention of De Mestral, who had spent all his savings to realize the idea and register the brand. Needless to say, the effort was worth it, since today thousands of Velcro® kilometers are produced and sold: instead of zipper in garments, bags, wallets, laces... It has eleven uses.

Velcroa® is more than fifty years old, and in that period very few inventions have been so successful. But we know the secret of De Mestral, the example of nature. Therefore, if we have a practical problem, we just have to look at nature, we will realize that she has found the solution before us. But nature is very wide and we should know where to look.

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